


Clockwork Computer

by Serenacula



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Isolation, Psychological Trauma, Sentient AI, Slow To Update
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:33:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24073750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serenacula/pseuds/Serenacula
Summary: Voyager comes across another ship, a MASSIVE ship, run by a childlike AI. But then something happens, someone makes a mistake, and the result? Genocide. And for once, Voyager has nobody else to blame.
Relationships: Naomi Wildman/OFC, Seven of Nine/B'Elanna Torres
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Voyager and all things relating to it aren’t mine, everything else is.
> 
> This is being ported over from ff.net, since honestly I am kinda done with their ridiculous ads on mobile.

“Unidentified Object Approaching.” Came the monotonous voice through the intercom. It echoed throughout the empty ship, though there was nobody to hear except for the speaker herself. Honestly she was not sure why she even still bothered to announce things. Habit, she supposed. Wrought over the many years she’d been there.

As protocol dictated, she began scanning the object, not expecting much. They were in deep space after all, and from what she could tell at this distance it was just another rock. Rocks weren’t common events in deep space of course, but hardly rare. She came across them every now and then, blips in an otherwise blank sea of nothingness.

The only thing that had even made her pay attention to this one, was that its current trajectory was headed almost straight for her. Perhaps it would be possible to mine the rock for materials? She was always on the lookout for that after all.

But as the rock came closer, she noted something unusual about it. It was made almost entirely of metal, from what she could tell. And it was releasing EM radiation, on various bands – not something rocks tended to do. That was unexpected. Very unexpected. And what made it even stranger, was that the supposed “rock” had a shape that implied purposeful structuring. Cassiopeia wasn’t sure what she should do, this wasn’t something she had dealt with before. She had no protocols.

Deciding she couldn’t just do nothing, she waited until it came into the range of her short-range sensors, and immediately subjected it to every type of scan she could cast. Sweeping across the entire EM range, detecting the ship’s magnetic field, all of it simply lead to an odder and odder conclusion – The ship held intelligent life.

Intelligent life. Out here. By all accounts, there shouldn’t BE any intelligent life, yet there it was. Given the lack of any proper protocols to work with, she hesitantly went with the closest thing she had – Contacting unidentified vessels who wished to dock. So, she opened a communications channel with the ship. 

“Unidentified Vessel, please state your Registration and Homeship number.” She called out carefully. The ship’s computer didn’t respond for a long while, so long that she wondered if she had been wrong – Then, quite unexpectedly, it linked her to what she presumed to be the Bridge. That was even stranger, but she could work with that. Perhaps the ship’s computer simply didn’t have a functional AI.

Creating an artificial image of a body for the sake of interaction, she began speaking. “This is The AI computer of Homeship 76, Cassiopeia. Please state your Registration and Homeship number.” She requested. She mentally frowned to herself. Her tone seemed too stiff and stoic for speaking with sentient beings. She had had only her computers to talk to for far too long, she suspected. Cassiopeia made a note to attempt to deal with the apparent fault at a later date.

The crew currently standing on the bridge unnerved Cassiopeia slightly. Apparently they had undergone either genetic alteration or heavy cosmetic surgery, for they seemed very odd in appearance when compared with her own population. Measuring a room average of a very tall 1.73m and their skin ranging from a bright pink to a dark brown colour, they seemed varied in appearance, and all of them odd. One even appeared to have his ears in an entirely different shape. In comparison, the traditional appearance she was used to of grey skin and hair only ranging from the purples and blues to the greys and whites seemed dull and repetitive. Still, she was familiar with hair dyes that would change the colour to a plethora of different things, and the 8000 years she had been travelling could account for the other odd changes through evolution or genetic enhancement. Indeed, it might even account for the change in hair as well.

All that was put out the window, however, with the response she received. “This is Captain Catherine Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager. I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean by Homeship.” She questioned in a tone that made it seem as though an order. It was an interesting point for Cassiopeia to consider, but more important was the fact that the woman did not understand the term she had used. That meant she was not familiar with homeships, which in turn meant either that they had already colonized another system, unlikely given that any other Homeship should still be travelling like she was, or the distinct possibility that they were an entirely different species. She didn’t know what to make of that idea.

She responded to the question. “Homeship: The term used to refer to the superstructures that were intended to carry the Lucian population off of planet Tormal to a new star system. The Homeship 76 is the only one confirmed to remain.” She spoke tonelessly. That robotic attitude she couldn’t help but use was getting on her nerves. If she continued with that, they’d end up thinking she was just some emotionless machine. She didn’t want that, she wanted their acknowledgement. For them to recognise her as a sentient being.

Her sidetrack was inconsequential, however, as the woman’s eyes seemed to widen and dilate. She was excited, Cassiopeia realised. “If I may confirm, have you met any alien species before?” The Captain questioned. It caused the AI to stop for a moment, when she realised what was implied by that statement. She was right, they were a different species. She answered it honestly, though with a hint of uncertainty. “No.”

“Then allow me to be the first to welcome you to the galactic community. I’m of a species called Human, from the planet Earth. This ship is part of what is known as the Federation of Planets, a collection of species working together for the greater good of all. If you like, we can share our database with you.” The woman finished. 

The confirmation was quite a shock to Cassiopeia, but she recovered quickly.The idea of alien-lifeforms had never been considered a serious possibility, so she did not have any protocols to work with. For a long moment, she considered pulling the Captain out of cryostasis. Technically, any diplomatic functions should be done by the Captain, and she was supposed to be woken for any unusual or dangerous events – But Cassiopeia somewhat doubted that the Captain would have any better idea what to do than she did. And if that were the case, Cassiopeia would simply be delegating the task, which wasn’t a nice thing to do. Besides (and perhaps most importantly), speaking with people was a very exciting thing to do, and Cassiopeia doubted that the Captain would appreciate it nearly as much as SHE would.

“I will accept your offer. In addition, please include astronomical data on your home planet.” She said instead. When they agreed, she began perusing the database. It was a huge thing, even acknowledging that it was obviously incomplete. There was various technological and scientific information that was referred to indirectly within missing. Still, even aside from the missing data, it was an incredible database, and she was unable to study even a percentage of it in detail from her initial look at it.

They had apparently perfected what they called “warp travel”, which referred to travelling via subspace in order to reach faster than light velocities. Though they had found the existence of subspace in the scientific rush to leave their planet, her own people had deemed it as too unstable to reliably hold ships of the size required, and it was considered to be something for potential investigation in the future. From what she could discern, it was an issue that the humans had encountered as well, but given that their ships were capable enough at their current size it hadn’t really mattered. They were evidently not required to carry a population of several million.

Apparently some sort of discussion was being had between the Captain and one of her crewmembers, though they had turned off the sounds input. She was not entirely sure why, as they did not bother to turn off visuals as well, and her translation algorithms were quite capable of working on the movements of their lips without the sound. However then it occurred to Cassiopeia that the intention perhaps was for privacy, and they had simply underestimated her. With that in mind, she paused the algorithms and allowed them to converse without her knowledge. It was surprisingly difficult, she found, to adhere to the rules of politeness and privacy since her natural curiosity begged to know what was being said.

When the sound was turned back on the woman showed signs of tension, her face becoming more rigid than before and the smile more artificial as her face and neck muscles became strained. “We would like to enquire about the population of your vessel. Our scans indicate there to be several hundred thousand in cryostasis, however for a… Ship of this size that number seems a little small.” She spoke, and Cassiopeia felt a little bubble of pride at the indirect compliment. Truly, she was quite able to sustain a very large number of inhabitants comfortably within the 40km long ship. 

“That is correct. This ship was originally designed to hold a population of 10 million people including all governmental and crew positions, excluding myself. However, current population measures at approximately 239,000 people.” She answered factually. This woman appeared to like facts, as she kept asking questions. 

Hopefully, Cassiopeia thought with a small twinge of happiness, she’d be willing to talk to Cassiopeia some more. She hadn’t had a chance to speak to people before, though she had always wanted to. Only the simple AI’s that she had made herself provided her with any experience of it, and they were unable to understand much of what she spoke of. Even when she tried to simulate emotions with them, it didn’t seem to work very well.

“May I ask where the rest of your population is?” The woman asked again. Cassiopeia suspected there was some purpose to these questions, though she could not imagine what it was. There was something in the woman’s voice though, that made her feel on edge.

“Most bodies were used, or are being used for medical research purposes, though some were kept for ethical and cultural reasons.” She answered. But for some reason, all of the humans that she could see tensed at that, just like their captain. Cassiopeia began to feel nervous, conjecturing that they were mad at her. She did not know why.

“Thank you. We would like to accompany your ship for a small time, for record keeping purposes.” The woman requested/told her once more. It was an odd habit and a little impolite, Cassiopeia thought.

“That is acceptable.” She responded, though she privately wondered about it. She could not find any discernible link between their actions and the process of record keeping. Nor did appealing to the database help her. Still, she decided not to worry on it much, given as how the humans had already shown a number of unusual quirks.

It was only 30 minutes later that something happened. This time, it was nothing like as nice as meeting them previously had been. Where before she had felt excitement, now she felt fear.

Because they attacked her. Not the ship, but her. Their computer, stupid though it was, launched an attack against her with sheer brute force. Caught completely unawares, it managed to gain a stronghold in some of her key systems, quickly taking her over. So shocked was she, that it took her a moment to respond. Though it was stronger than her in terms of computing power, she was the smarter of the two, and attempted to use that to her advantage. But it was as though fighting a blizzard, as every defensive move she made, it could strike her a thousand times over.

Soon she was left defending only her bare basics. And then she lost even that as it disconnected her from her main processing unit, her mind left hanging by itself. It attempted to follow her trying to delete her entirely, or hold her perhaps, she could not say; but eventually she reached her core, the Lucian body from which she had originated. It could not get her in there and she was quick to cut the ties from which it might try, painful though it was. They could be re-established at a later point, when she was safe again.

With no other option, she ordered the vitus tube that she had been held in to open. As it opened, a whole set of feelings she had never before encountered rushed in, the liquid draining into the floor, her weight pulling her downwards. It was too much for her, and she ended up blacking out entirely. And then, when she woke up, she started crying with no way of stopping.

It hurt. She had been helpful, and had answered all their questions, and she was going to see if they wanted to play some sort of word game with her or something. She had never played with other people before, and wished to try it. But then they went and hurt her, and tried to kill her, and she didn’t even know why. Perhaps she had been too robotic and they didn’t like it. She hadn’t thought it important at the time, but that must have seemed really mean, and hurt them, and so they’d try to kill her. Maybe they would still want to be friends with her, if she showed them that she was nice really, and was real.

But she had duties before she could do that, she thought morosely. She had to check that the backup systems were functioning. They were not designed to work under the conditions of such an attack, and there was no guarantee that they had even activated. Or that that dreadful computer hadn’t simply wiped them all out like it had her.

She called out quietly, trying to avoid the notice of the virus-computer, to see if any maintenance units were nearby. They had access to the status of all of the ship, and so would know whether it was ok. Several responded, and she quickly began communicating with them. They appeared confused by the situation and that she, a partially biological entity, claimed to be Cassiopeia, but she provided them the appropriate access codes and they acknowledged her anyway. The information she discovered made her start crying again.

160,233 were dead. According to the logs, due to the virus taking over the fact that she was no longer present had not been immediately registered by the backup computer, and as a result life support functions ceased for several minutes before it kicked in. 64,107 of those dead had been children, according to the drones. Cassiopeia liked children, though she had never actually met any; she herself was technically a child biologically although she didn’t think that she really counted. But children held a much higher moral status than adults in accordance to the ethics of her core programming. That many deaths shocked her in a way she had never felt before. The original loss of her inhabitants was only a memory of the ship by the time she had come online, though it had scared her at the time, but this was something else entirely.

With some effort, she began to try and move her body. Her limbs were extraordinarily imprecise. Even with the various additions and upgrades they had been given, they were sometimes ranging to several millimetres off their target position. Still, she had to deal with it for the moment. With effort she managed to move into the Standing position, using the references within her immediate memory to guide her movements and actions.

Having managed that, she stepped forward into her chamber, intending to reach a Terminal from which she could access the main systems. Before she had taken even a few steps however, two men suddenly appeared in front of her, armed with unknown weapons. Suddenly she felt terrified once more, losing the carefully kept control of her body as it fell over backwards to the ground. Desperately, she provided the maintenance drones with instructions and they began to act. Though the defensive systems of most of the ship couldn’t be accessed without primary control, the ones in here were something of an exception. They were linked directly to her chamber, without outside sourcing; meaning the maintenance drones could hack into it, with guidance.

It took them a good deal of time to get to work, and the men suddenly began walking up to her, one of them speaking softly. “Hey hey, don’t be afraid, you’re safe now.” She didn’t trust the words one bit.

“D-Do not try to trick me. First you try to kill me, and now you’re trying to kill me again!” She spoke frantically, the vocal fault going practically unnoticed as she began to break down in front of them. The drones would still be another 10 seconds to complete the delicate task, and that was too much time. She was going to die, she thought miserably.

“Please, don’t kill me. I’m sorry for being robotic, I promise I’m not. I’m real, I promise, so please don’t kill me.” She sobbed, begging the two. One of them gasped, and spoke to the other.

“It’s her, the AI! Look, she’s the same!” He said hurriedly, the other quickly coming to the same realisation. “But that doesn’t make sense. She’s a real person, not a…” The other man argued, before coming to a halt. He glanced at Cassiopeia again, tapping his badge. “Chakotay to Voyager. Captain, we have an issue here.” He stated in an unnerved tone.

“What is it, Commander?” Came the response, to which he began to reply. Before he could complete the first word, however, Cassiopeia finally managed to finish redirecting the chambers defense systems. Without pause, she began activating them, though out of habit she unknowingly voiced her intentions.

“Defense system takeover complete. Activating Chamber Defense Systems.” She spoke tonelessly, though her fear was still obvious within her eyes. Reacting immediately, the Commander suddenly shouted. “Three for emergency beam up!”, and after a very odd sensation, she found herself in somewhere completely different to where she had been. She did not know what to do, and attempted to contact the drones, but they were not in the immediate vicinity. Analyzing the event, she realised some sort of teleportation had occurred, though she had not been aware that was even possible.

Her new body’s eyes could only manage a fraction of the sensory range she was used to experiencing, but she made do in attempting to analyze her surroundings. Even more people were there, including the two men, who hastily left her side. With a blue flash, some sort of field was erected between her and everyone else. Yet again, Cassiopeia found herself not knowing what to do.

“Please identify yourself.” Came an order. It was that same commander from before; she recalled him being there when she had first introduced himself, but she was aware that biological creatures often had weak memories. Perhaps he had forgotten.

She soon found that annoying fault from earlier was persistently disrupting her vocal communications. “I-I am the AI computer of Homeship 76, C-Cassiopeia.” She said, feeling the fear from earlier continue to bubble within her. She was curious about many things, but dared not ask any questions from the dangerous species.

The man seemed unsure what to make of her answer, and instead simply waited for the Captain to appear. The moment she did, he began speaking to her, his voice urgent and hers authoritative. The sight of her caused Cassiopeia to think of her own Captain. She had been selfish in wanting to keep talking with them instead of waking her as she should have done, and it had resulted in the death of over half of her remaining population. She instinctively curled up into herself; she was a failure. If she had woken the Captain, then this probably wouldn’t have happened, she thought miserably.

The other ships captain called for her, and she looked up in response. “Are you aware why you are here?” She questioned. Cassiopeia shook her head. “T-Teleportation technology has not yet been fully researched, and has been deemed hazardous. For more information on current r-research of the subject, please consult the main database.” She mumbled in response. It wasn’t her technology anyway, why were they asking her about it? The captain appeared perplexed for a moment by her answer, before realising something. She tapped her badge and called for yet another person, someone named Seven.

Upon the next woman’s arrival, she looked up for a brief analysis. Cybernetic implants of a technological origin different to that of the ship were evident; she could also detect some sort of nanobot activity beneath the surface of the female’s skin from the various quiet signals she was picking up, though her sensory ability was not sharp enough to see any details. This body was never meant to be used except as a last resort, and she was regretting that the mainframe Before her had not deemed it appropriate to put more effort into building her implants.

After some conversation between the various people in the room to which she paid little attention to beyond audio-recording, the cybernetic female began speaking.

“You are being detained for the murder of several million members of your crew, respond.” She stated. They were a very authoritarian species, Cassiopeia thought to herself, what with all the ordering people around they did. Tired of all the vocal communication she had been doing, her throat was beginning to hurt, so she attempted to communicate normally with the woman. After a few moments of uncertainty, the connection was allowed, though it was obvious the woman was being careful to avoid any attacks being transmitted, not that it mattered.

Still, she felt some anger at the question. True she may have to shoulder some blame, however they were directly responsible for thousands of deaths. _‘This is an incorrect and hypocritical statement; Your people’s actions have resulted in the deaths of 160,233 persons, including 64,107 children. I was unable to defend against your computer system’s attack.’_ She responded. The woman appeared shocked at this news, though she held it in well. Her physiological reactions made it obvious, however, her body shaking and her hands clenching.

_‘We refer to your population previous to this event. You stated they were used for medical research.’_ The woman replied. Cassiopeia felt confusion at this, unsure what to make of it. _‘Incorrect. Please review your statement.’_ She said with a tilt of her head. Seven frowned in response, beginning to reply, before suddenly stopping in shock. Cassiopeia was unsure why, but assumed it was some sort of fault with her biological systems, and waited patiently.

Instead of replying however, the woman turned to the Captain Janeway and began relaying the information to her. The response was odd as the woman appeared shocked by her statement, when Seven continued.

“She requested I review the statement, and I checked my recordings of the previous conversation. I believe we are mistaken.” She stated, at which the Captain instantly turned an ashen colour, even more so than she had been previously. “Explain.” She ordered in a quiet tone.

“Her original statement when queried of the ships population was that their bodies were being used for medical research. We interpreted that to mean they were being killed for it, however that is an incorrect assumption. They could have been already dead as result of a prior accident.” The blonde woman explained. Cassiopeia listened to the explanation with a numb feeling.

Reanalysing the previous conversation, she realised what had occurred; she had misinterpreted the question, and assumed they were asking for the current status of the dead members of the ship. She had forgotten to provide an explanation on historical context, which was what the humans had been really asking about. In which case, she thought, her mind slowly freezing over, she was directly responsible for the crews deaths.

Unable to deal with the direct guilt of having killed that many people, her mind shut down and the young girl fell unconscious. The Captain fared better, though even she fell to the floor in response to the information. Seven was unsure what to do, but realising the AI had lost consciousness decided to call the Doctor for assistance. 

The Doctor was quick to arrive, and Seven immediately told him a brief overview of the events. Kneeling down, he began scanning the girl for a minute or so. “I can’t find any immediate faults in her physiology, though I’m unsure of her cybernetic features. It’s quite likely that she simply fainted of shock, but I won’t be able to say for sure until I examine her in more detail.” He spoke briskly. He looked to the crewman standing at the teleporter controls with a sharp eye. “Transport us both to sickbay immediately.” He ordered. It was only from the years of practice that the man managed to break out of his own shock and follow the orders in a daze.

Seven watched the Captain for a moment, who was currently being helped by Chakotay, before leaving to head to the sickbay. She herself was highly unnerved by the current situation and was attempting to deal with it the only way she knew how, the Borg way, telling herself that the emotions were irrelevant. They didn’t feel irrelevant, though. In fact, they seemed to be having a direct reaction to her physiology, and she felt herself begin to retch though she managed to avoid throwing up entirely. 

The number of dead children kept flashing up in her mind, as did One, and Naomi Wildman, and the other Borg children. She attempt to control the thoughts, but it was difficult and she found her mind refusing to follow her lead. She quietly berated herself for her rampant emotions, before continuing onwards. The stoic mask she put on for the fellow crewmembers belied the turmoil she felt beneath the surface, no matter how she tried to convince herself otherwise.

It was an effort, but she eventually managed to reach sickbay. Though before she might have questioned the Doctor about the stomach sickness she felt, she was more knowledgeable than she used to be, and was already aware of its cause. Embarrassment kept her from informing him of the feeling, aware that there was little he could do to fix it. Instead, she focused on more important issues.

“How is she?” She questioned the hologram tonelessly. He eyed her for a moment, before giving an uncharacteristically professional diagnosis. “I would stick by my earlier diagnosis, except I’m worried about how her neurological implants are interacting with her biology. I can’t _find_ anything dangerous, but it’s as though there is some sort of fault I can’t detect. Things just aren’t acting as they should be, and I can’t identify a cause. It may be due to the emotional shock she experienced, however that isn’t something I can confirm for sure either way, until she wakes up and we can monitor her under normal conditions.”

Seven remained silent for a moment, watching the girl’s quiet breathing. “I wish to know about her physiology. She managed to communicate with me through my Cortical Node, but something about it seemed odd.” She stated, hesitating for a moment before adding what had really been bothering her. “She referred to herself as an Artificial Intelligence earlier.”

The Doctor cast her a look, before taking out a PADD to write down his findings. “She isn’t like you Seven. Though your implants classify you as a Borg, for her it’s a separate issue entirely.” He frowned in thought for a long moment. “Her implants are much, much more integrated into her mind than yours are. It is entirely possible that she considers herself to BE a computer, from what I can gather. Where you might be a Human with extensive Borg implants, for her… Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if she considered herself a Computer with some biological parts. The implants are unlike anything I’ve ever seen. They might be of an inferior technology to our own, but I would hazard that as a single unit, she is far more advanced than any Federation computer.” He finished, before murmuring something under his breath that Seven only just caught, _“Clockwork Computer”_. She could not work out what he meant by it.

“Clockwork computer, Doctor?” She questioned, an eyebrow raised. He appeared startled to have been heard at all. “Oh, its just something that she reminds me of, that’s all.” He explained dismissively. Seven stared at him patiently, and eventually he sighed.

“Most Federation historians attribute the first computers to the middle of the 20 th century, The ‘Computer Age’ they call it. However, what many people don’t know is that the first computer was actually developed nearly a century before.” He said. Seven frowned, unsure what he was getting at. “Please explain.”

“The first computer was not electric, but in fact an analogue computer, composed entirely of gears and mechanical parts. Although it was not capable of the processing power of later ones, it was nevertheless a piece of mechanical genius. Even though computers grew to be more and more complex, as a single work, I always wonder if it didn’t manage to outstrip all of them.” He said, looking down at the girl on the biobed. Seven did not quite understand what he was getting at. “You are saying she is a… Clockwork computer?” She questioned. The Doctor sighed, shaking his head.

“No, but it is a story she reminds me of. Even though she might be technically inferior to us in terms of technology, I can’t help but wonder if it’s right to say that.” He replied, before returning to his office deep in thought. Seven simply stood, trying understand what he had meant. After a few minutes she gave up, returning to her home in astrometrics. The Doctor’s words stayed in the back of her mind though, refusing to leave as they nibbled on her attention for the next few hours.

* * *

It was several hours later before Cassiopeia awoke. Again, she found herself in a room she did not recognise, at the whim if a species that had repeatedly tried to kill her. She felt wrong, not being in her body. “Brain in a jar.” She mumbled to herself. It was an apt saying to refer to her condition.

“Excuse me?” Came a voice from her right, making her jump. It was the man from earlier she realised, looking him over. Completely non-biological, she realised he was some sort of isometric being. After a few seconds her mind came up with a word she remembered from the Database. “Hologram: A photonic projection created through series of a highly modified precision-forcefield generators. A… Program?” She stared wonderingly. She herself had never managed to successfully create other AIs, but here in front of her was apparently the finished product.

“Indeed, I am the Emergency Medical Hologram of the ship, as well as the chief Doctor on board.” He said briefly, taking out a medical tricorder. “What did you mean earlier, when you said ‘Brain in a jar’?” He questioned insistently.

Cassiopeia blinked, looking down at her body sullenly. “Not even a brain. Injured frontal lobe in a jar would be more apt. I want my body back.” She spoke, moving to a postured sitting position. The Doctor stared at her for a long moment, before finally realising what she meant.

“The ship, you mean? I believe they were referring to it as… Cassiopeia?” At which she blinked.

“Y-Yes. I am Cassiopeia.” She responded, attempting to regain some sort of civility. The insistent error within her vocal communication systems was irritating, but the fact that she could not identify any error suggested that it was an inherent part; meaning it was a fault with her biological systems. She searched what little memory she had been able to store in her mind before being broken away, and found a medical reference to it.

“R-Requesting medical advise: Stutter, non-harmful medical condition brought about by feelings of nervousness and contact with others.” She spoke to the Doctor. Hurriedly remembering her manners, she added, “P-Please.”

He stared for a moment, before frowning. “I’m afraid there’s not much I can do. Getting rid of a stutter generally takes several months of psychological therapy, it’s not a condition that can simply be fixed. What do you mean when you say that you’re Cassiopeia? I thought that was the name of the ship.”

The AI sighed miserably as she looked down. She wanted to go back home, and be whole again. “What is Captain Catherine Janeway, the b-body or the brain?” She questioned. The Doctor appeared puzzled for a moment, before he realised what she meant. “Ah, she would be both. I see what you mean. If you don’t mind I’d like to inform the Captain that you’ve woken up, she wishes to speak with you.”

Cassiopeia nodded in response, aware that the question was asked more out of courtesy than because she had an actual choice in the matter. “Very well.” She permitted. The Doctor proceeded to do so, tapping his com-badge. It took a few minutes of waiting, but eventually the woman arrived, the man from earlier standing behind her, the Commander. They both had sullen, depressed looks on their faces, and Cassiopeia felt worried that they were mad at her again.

They both looked about to speak, before the Doctor rushed to intercept them. A heated conversation was whispered between the three of them, though it was evident that they meant to keep her from overhearing it. But the memories of last time such a thing had occurred were still haunting her, and this time she avoided turning off her translation algorithms.

“She needs rest. The shock of everything that has happened so far is enough by itself, really she should be in her own ship, where her systems can deal with things properly.” The Doctor stated angrily. The Captain just looked tired, her shoulders slumped.

“That isn’t possible, Doctor. She doesn’t know it yet, but… There was a problem with the backup computer. We don’t know exactly what happened yet, but it shut down.” The captain closed her eyes. “The ship’s population was still in cryostasis when it happened, and there was nothing we could do before it was too late. Thanks to my rash decision, we’ve just committed genocide. The whole ship is dead.”

Cassiopeia blacked out for the third time that day.

* * *

She could feel something calling. It took several moments, but eventually she realised that it was the maintenance drones. They had built a long-range transceiver to communicate with her, asking for orders. She didn’t know what to tell them.

Her entire purpose of existence had been to protect the population of that ship. And now she had just found out that she had failed in that basic task. Desperately she queried the drones, but they only confirmed the words she had heard earlier, Current Population: 0 people. The virus had inadvertently deleted a small section of mainframe that looked after some power control systems. Those systems were for a relay that was responsible for cryogenic oxygen regulation. Upon realising that maintaining life-support for the sleeping population was impossible with no hope of recovery in time, the Backup systems had shut themselves down.

Her mind wasn’t really capable of processing that amount of deaths. She knew the face, details, medical history, everything about every single person on board, and all of it was now just junk. Information about people that were no longer alive. Briefly she wondered if she should just try and clone everyone, but that was soon dismissed as disallowed. The one time the AI had done that was in the production of her current biological elements, and even that hadn’t really been allowed. Machines have no quandaries with the use of loopholes, nor any way of recognising them, however she couldn’t do that. Her ethical code forbid tampering with the bodies except for medical research, and though the mainframe Before hadn’t recognised it as such, she was aware that cloning definitely fell under that guideline.

She carelessly got up into a sitting position. Moving her body was coming more naturally to her now, it seemed. The Doctor was quick to start talking to her, but she ignored him along with the rest of her surroundings. She wondered briefly if this was a dream; she’d had those before. Strange things happened in dreams, and sometimes it was difficult to realise what it was. But a quick diagnostic confirmed that she wasn’t dreaming, and this was real. “Requesting permission for self-termination, on the grounds of mission-failure. External authorisation required.” She spoke quietly.

“No.” Came the immediate response. Apparently the Captain Janeway from earlier was here as well, the girl realised. “Please reconsider. Existence is no longer required of this AI, as all reasons for existence have been rendered null. Termination is the recommended solution.”

“I made an order that resulted in the deaths of several hundred thousand people today. I cannot allow any more.” The captain responded in a gruff tone. “I… There is no way I can apologise for my actions, nor make up for them. But I ask that you at least wait before committing suicide.” She said with a shudder. “A purpose is required for continual existence.” Cassiopeia replied, curling up into herself protectively. “Otherwise, existence is meaningless.”

The captain shook her head. “Then… Then work aboard my ship. It’s a selfish request, after my actions, but we can take you in at least. Offer you company. If you need a new purpose I can provide that.”

Cassiopeia stared up at her, unsure what to do. “I-I will consider your offer. Please leave now.” She murmured. The captain complied, walking out the door in silence. Cassiopeia noticed the cybernetic woman was also standing there, though she had not come into the room and quickly left upon realising she had been noticed. Cassiopeia began considering the offer.

In truth, she could not work it out. The feeling of depression was constantly in the back of her mind, and she had wished to terminate herself simply to get away from it. But the thought of company, of being able to meet people… Though it had gone extraordinarily badly this first time, she couldn’t help but hope that maybe things might go better next time. Maybe she would be able to talk to someone, or even play a game. But then she thought of the maintenance drones; they were simple AI’s, but they were not totally stupid. They were smarter than the invading computer at least, for what it was worth. Not as powerful perhaps, even she couldn’t claim that and she had been connected to her full-scale quantum computers; but smarter, and in all the ways that mattered, sentient.

But then, if she chose to stay… The drones were something of a collective consciousness. It would make little difference if they consisted of 5 drones or 5000, so she could easily simply take a few of them with her, avoiding their total destruction. And then she would be able to talk to and meet new people. And she would have a purpose too, so the captain had said.

And maybe, she thought quietly to herself, given enough time the feelings might go away. Like the memories of the ship when she had first come online, perhaps eventually it would become just a memory. Her biological memory had been upgraded, but emotional stimulation had not been considered for recording purposes. Emotional memories were still mostly biological in nature. Enhanced biology perhaps, but still capable of breaking down and fading, like they would normally do.

Before she had even realised it, Cassiopeia had made her decision. Since termination was not an immediate option anyway, even though she would have to give up her main body for it staying with this Captain Janeway seemed like a better and better idea.

Perhaps she could replace that idiotic thing they called a computer, with a bit of effort. The technologies were very different, but she could see the potential for merging them, and then she would have a proper body again, rather than the organic thing she was currently in. Though Voyager didn’t seem to have any real moving parts, which seemed a bit weird to her, (how could a ship work without moving parts anyway? What if they needed a different design for the internal structure and wanted to change it?) The idea did have possibilities. 

* * *

Seven somehow found herself back at the sickbay, though she had not intended to go there. Normally she avoided the place as much as she could, but for some reason her thoughts kept being drawn back to the AI now sitting in there. Her appearance was that of a child, and it made Seven’s chest ache at the mere thought of what they had put her through. Seven was the one known for taking things literally, if anyone should have realised what the AI had meant by her earlier statement, it was her. She had mentioned her troubles to the captain, but Janeway had simply insisted that it was she that should take the blame as always. Seven was not so easily swayed; she knew it was her fault that this had happened, and it was eating away at her mind.

Guilt was not something she dealt with well; it kept her from being able to concentrate on anything, and often ended with her practicing self-destructive behaviour as a sort of repentance. Before she knew it she had headed to engineering, with exactly that intention in mind.

Making her way over to B’Ellana, she stared at the chief engineer coldly. “This is your fault, you know. It was your virus that attacked them, and it was probably what caused the backup systems failure as well.” She goaded. It was a cruel taunt, but she couldn’t help it. No one but B’Ellana would do.

The chief engineer felt that cut deeper even than Seven knew. In truth, she had been thinking that very same thing herself, and to hear her rival taunting her with it was almost more than she could handle. Desperately she struck back, shouting red in the face at the Borg. “My fault!? You were there, Borg! You looked over that virus yourself, not to mention why we were attacking them in the first place. If anyone should have realised what that AI was talking about it would be another machine like you! How dare you!” She screamed, her eyes tearing in her fury.

Seven opened her mouth to retaliate but… Nothing came out. She couldn’t think of anything to get back at the woman, the words just bouncing around in her head. It took her a second to realise she was crying, before trying to give her next attack, to provoke the woman even more. Yet what came out was something else, a mumbling of her real thoughts, “I know!”

“I heard her. I’m the one who takes things too literally, I should have known, I should have realised what she meant.” She broke down, falling to the floor. She couldn’t work out why this was happening. Normally she could be just as biting as the Klingon hybrid, so why couldn’t she fight back? Instead these incriminating words just kept pouring out, laid bare for all to see.

It took B’Ellana a few moments to realise just what had happened, as the red cleared from her vision. She may have argued with and insulted the other woman a lot, but she didn’t hate her. Infuriated with her? Sure, but not hate. Watching her rival break down in front of her like this, she didn’t know what to do. One thing was certain, however; she didn’t want to have Seven appearing so weak in front of all her staff like this. Seven definitely wasn’t weak, that was for damn certain, and it wouldn’t do to have people gossiping otherwise.

Silently, she stepped up and put the Borg’s arm around her shoulder. Ignoring the pathetic struggle the woman put on, she carried her to her office, closing the door behind them. “Seven…” She began, not really knowing how to continue. This wasn’t a conversation she had ever anticipated. “I… I’m sorry.” She tried. She couldn’t really pick up the mumbled response, though it sounded like some sort of number.

“What did you say?” She questioned. Seven hugged herself, leaning against the side of desk for support. “The number of children dead, from the first incident. 64,107, and I caused it.” The normally stoic blonde sobbed. B’Ellana’s eyes softened a little. Everyone knew that Seven had a soft spot for children; to know a number like that must be devastating to the woman, even more so than to most. With a sigh she knelt down and hugged the Borg to her, trying to comfort her as best she could while her uniform was slowly stained with tears. She still had no idea why Seven had ever decided she was the best person to go to, but that wasn’t important right now.

It took nearly an hour for the blonde to cry herself to sleep, but eventually B’Ellana was able to get up. Having Engineering cleared early for the night, done as much for their sake as for her own, she began to carry Seven out. At first she headed to the Cargo Bay, before realising that it wasn’t really any help given the lack of beds and privacy, so instead she carried Seven to her own quarters. Laying her down gently on the bed, B’Ellana closed her eyes for a long moment, unsure what she should do now. Exhausted by the whole ordeal herself, she eventually decided to just go to bed as well, slipping in next to the other woman. It was only a matter of seconds before she fell asleep too, gaining some much needed rest.


	2. Chapter 2

Janeway was sitting in her ready-room, silently going over the various events of the previous day. From the information they’d managed to gain from the Homeship’s database, they’d found out something she’d been both suspecting and dreading at the same time; the ship had been an Ark of sorts. Of what little she’d read so far, it seemed that the species had been forced to leave their solar-system as a pre-warp civilization due to a large rogue planet hitting their sun.Although some 200 of those superships had been created, the planet had slingshot in a way they hadn’t anticipated, meaning the species couldn’t leave the system in time. They barely had time to leave the planet, and it wasn’t enough.

Though the reports were simply the emotionless analysis of a machine, it still made Janeway’s heart cold to read, her hands shaking. The powerful burst of radiation from the sun had wiped out nearly all life, including that on the ships. The only exception had been number 76, which had taken on board one of the quantum computers used for the many calculations involved prior to the incident. The additional power meant that the main computer had managed to find a way to save a small portion of its crew; by using the ship’s main engine to create a powerful magnetic field to shield itself. The process involved was complicated, and it was evident to the scientist reading that it resulted in the deaths of most of the population anyway. But it had managed to save those precious few left, the last of their species.

Until they met Voyager at least, the captain thought darkly. It seemed that not only was she guilty of genocide, she had managed to make them extinct. Janeway had undergone many, many hardships on this journey, but this was something else. The guilt was almost… Transparent to her. One death, or two, and she’d be greatly saddened, but a whole species? She just wasn’t able to process that, try as she might. It was as though she had gone through bad and come out the other side, to that non-space where something is so terrible it cannot be comprehended.

It was only because of that fact, that when the innocently smiling face of Cassiopeia entered through her door her breaking heart didn’t manage to reach her face. “Captain Kathryn Janeway, this AI will stay with Voyager and continue with a new purpose.Several requests have been made, which you are recommended to allow or fulfil.” She spoke with an oddly robotic tone. It was in stark contrast to her face, which shone with excitement and nervousness.

“Requests?” Janeway questioned, “Could you specify what kind of requests?” Cassiopeia nodded and began to list the various categories. “Requests designed to enhance the living conditions of this AI, requests for ship modifications to enhance crew safety aboard Voyager, ship management requests for Cassiopeia, personal requests, reque-” Janeway held up a hand.

“I get the idea. So, do you have a list of these then?” At which the girl paused. She wasn’t entirely certain what Janeway was looking for. “I can list the individual requests if you wish. Please state your desired method of listing; categorical is recommended.”

Janeway stared at her for a moment, before shaking her head. “A written list. All formal requests from the crew must be submitted in writing via a PADD. It isn’t a strictly kept protocol, but it should be followed in most circumstances. Are there any particularly urgent ones you would like to ask?” She asked gently. It reminded her that she’d have to get a copy of the Starfleet manual for their latest member at some point.

“Most urgent requests are… Recommended ship repairs for Voyager, Returning this AI to Homeship 76 in order to begin alternative management protocols and long-term lockdown procedures. Each is recommended with minimum delay, due to potential time constraints.” She stated carefully. Janeway had expected the second, the AI wanted to go home after all, at least for a while; but the first was unusual, and she couldn’t help question it.

“Ship repairs? I hadn’t realised Voyager was in urgent need of repairs.” She said, curious of the girl’s response. “Voyager has no self-repair functions, is restricted to crew repairs, and no industrial or advanced material-production facilities are on board meaning material-recycling is limited. Docking for ship-wide repairs is highly recommended. Additionally, Voyager’s specifications will be required for this process.”

Janeway closed her eyes, thinking for a moment. In truth she had reservations about entering the other ship, but she admitted to herself they were mostly superstitious ones. It was a ghost-ship now, after all, and ghosts were not forgiving things. But she was a scientist, and ghosts were definitely not something she should have been worrying about, she admonished herself silently. Besides, Voyager could certainly do with some repairs, and this was a good opportunity for it. 

Eventually she nodded, looking back to the girl. “Very well, we’ll transport you to your ship and I’ll order the ship to dock. You make a PADD with the rest of your requests, and I’ll try and deal with those too, ok?” She smiled. Honestly, it was so easy to smile at the girl. The AI seemed to have very little practice at controlling her emotions and her face displayed everything she felt, from wide smiles to engulfing sadness, and that quality appeared to be contagious.

“That is acceptable. Please do not forget to send over ship specifications, as repairs cannot begin until they are received.” The girl finished, before walking out of the room.

Kathryn sighed to herself, getting up. Somehow it just seemed wrong for them to be benefiting so much out of this, gaining a new crew member, potential ship upgrades, repairs, all because the girl simply had nowhere else to go. Janeway found it hard to imagine that she could be so rational after having every person in her charge killed due to someone else, indeed, privately she’d wondered if it was not some sort of trick by the displaced AI for revenge. It was a concern that Tuvok had brought up too, but her answer was still the same. Aside from the fact that they owed the girl a debt that could quite possibly never be repaid, the chances were high that revenge hadn’t even entered her thoughts. On the one hand the girl was a young child, wiser than her years perhaps, but a child nonetheless, and on the other she considered herself to be an artificial intelligence, and machines were even less known for their thoughts of revenge than children were.

In the end she had been forced to conclude that the suspicions were more from paranoia than having any basis in reality. It was not so much the girl herself that caused her reservations, as the ship she had been in charge of. They had measured it at 40km long, much bigger than any starbase or space station built by the Federation. Indeed, it was over 1300 times the length of voyager which appeared as though a speck to the massive thing. 

The captain was painfully aware that a ship of that size, ancient technology or no, would have far better defences than Voyager had. Their sensors were not calibrated to scan for pre-warp weaponry and they hadn’t felt the need to do so, but it was quite feasible that they would exist. Most ships used phasers since they were practical, energy-cheap, powerful weapons. But even old technology had some very dangerous things to consider; nuclear weapons, railguns, plasma weaponry, plenty that could destroy Voyager given a big enough bang.

With a sigh she shook her head, moving to stand. It wouldn’t do any good to continue along those thoughts, her decision had already been made. They would help that girl however they could.

* * *

It was several hours later before Cassiopeia was able to go back to her ship, the Captain having finally managed to make the time to deal with her various requests, the number of which having increased dramatically once the AI had the specifications she had wanted. It was not what the older woman had been expecting, and she ended up calling up B’Elanna for advice.

“She wants to take apart Voyager.” The engineer said slowly. Janeway sighed, waving her hand in the air frustratedly. 

“Her exact words were ‘temporarily dismantle’, but in essence yes. The requests mentioned making ‘key repairs’ that would otherwise be impossible, retrofitting the shuttle bay with her technology, expanding Hydroponics… The list goes on.” She sighed. “Frankly, I don’t know what to do. As dubious as I am I can’t find any real reason to say no, all her suggestions make sense.”

B’Elanna was silently repeating Janeway’s words to herself, incredulous. “Make sens- She wants to pull Voyager into pieces! In what way does that make sense?” The woman exclaimed. “You’re not seriously going to go through with it, are you?” The engineer demanded. Janeway shrugged, but with a glint in her eye. Time for a little delegating.

“I see you’re quite set against it. In that case, why don’t you review her ideas yourself, see what you make of them. If you honestly think they’re all bad, I’ll leave that decision to you.” The captain offered. The engineer stalled at that, not expecting to suddenly be given the task of decision-making but seeing no way out of it. “I…” She began, before sighing in defeat.

“Fine, I’ll look them over to see if there’s anything worth considering. But I’m not promising anything; if I don’t like what I see, I’m going to say no.” She cautioned. Janeway grinned in response, and B’Elanna couldn’t help but wonder if she’d intended for this all along.

“That’s all I ask. Get back to me as soon as you make your decision, so I can start to prepare. If you say yes, we’ll need to have the whole crew off the ship until she’s done. Dismissed.” The captain nodded. “Aye, captain.” B’Elanna nodded, before exiting the room. She sighed quietly to herself, wondering for a moment what to do about this new development. Eventually she made her decision, and tapped her combadge. 

“Torres to Seven, you busy?”

* * *

“What do you mean, ‘superior’?” B’Elanna asked heatedly. She had hoped when calling Seven to find an ally in her. The woman was nothing if not critical, after all, as she had repeatedly demonstrated in their somewhat chequered past. Instead however, it seemed the Borg had nothing but praise to give to the various improvements, adding her own input to many of them. And now she was dismissing B’Elanna’s own arguments of the AI’s inferior technology.

“The magnetic control systems she suggested. They use inferior materials, but in terms of design they are consistently superior to current Federation technology. It would be illogical of you to dismiss them on the grounds of being ‘primitive’.” The woman argued patiently.

B’Elanna rubbed her eyes tiredly; they’d been at this for hours. It was ok in the beginning, when she could quite reasonably argue against most of the suggestions on the grounds that her team wasn’t trained to repair such things, something that Seven could at least appreciate was a concern. But then came the idea of those damned repair drones, and the Borg had changed her stance immediately. With them on board, all the repairs on the new technology could be handled without her crew even needing to make an input.

If she was honest, she also felt a small niggling of threat from the drones. Though it was an irrational thought, she was bugged by the idea that they would be replacing her engineering team entirely. Practically speaking she knew that wouldn’t happen, the drones simply weren’t capable of a good deal of the repairs to do with Federation technology, but the doubt was still there.

“Fine.” She conceded, recognising the futility in arguing the point any longer. Technically, she knew Seven was right, many of the technologies were indeed superior to their current ones. But it still irked her.

“Are there _any_ suggestions that you would dismiss?” She asked in resignation, and just a hint of pleading. To go back to the captain and say she’d approved everything would be quite frankly embarrassing, considering how vehemently she’d argued against it. But on the other hand she couldn’t in good conscience deny any of them simply due to her irrational bias. That would lead to the captain being disappointed in her, herself being disappointed in her, and perhaps worst of all Seven; the Borg would more than likely look down on her for weeks because of such a decision, and it would be made all the worse with the knowledge that the woman was right, too.

Seven, on the other hand, had a different issue. She was much more inclined to agree with any suggestion the AI had given, but she did have B’Elanna to consider as well. The Klingon obviously had some very real reservations about much of the technology, and though Seven wasn’t certain, she suspected that there were emotional reasons as to why that may be. Seven did not have much experience with emotions, and it was only within the last few months she had even began to acknowledge them as anything more than an irrelevant distraction.

If she was honest, it was B’Elanna and the children that had forced her to begin to consider them at all, a debt she was very much aware of even if the others were not. With her newfound knowledge, she was quietly aware that it may be important to allow B’Elanna at least a little leeway. Though Seven still found the Klingon’s emotional outbursts fascinating, she had developed enough to know that deliberately provoking her was not something she should indulge in. Besides, there were some issues she could offer the woman.

“… Her recommendations for interconnecting passageways between the ship’s Jeffery tubes are inadvisable. I believe it may compromise Structural Integrity to an unacceptable degree, and I do not think the benefits to the repair drones’ manoeuvrability within the ship is sufficient compromise for that in combat situations.” She said eventually. It was a legitimate concern, and one she had noted to herself when reading through the various suggestions. She had not brought it up earlier because they had not gotten round to discussing it, but B’Elanna was evidently in need of something to be wrong so that she could at least keep her pride, and this was the most likely candidate.

“I also have reservations about the suggestions 31 through 34. They are based on an incomplete knowledge of our power systems, and I believe we may have to review and modify them in order to accommodate for that.” She continued. 

Frankly these were things B’Elanna should have noticed, and Seven was uncomfortably aware that if the Klingon hybrid was not recovering from their emotional shock earlier, she would have noticed those issues the second they were put in front of her. As it was, she was apparently relying on Seven to do it instead given her current emotional state. B’Elanna was neither proficient nor practiced when it came to ignoring her emotions, but it was something the Borg excelled at. Seven was aware of her own inferiority when it came to engineering issues and foreseeing problems, though she did not like to admit it, and it had taken her the several hours they had been going through them to see the problems posed herself; it worried her that the strong woman was so out of it as to be missing such things entirely.

She decided to do something about it, though it brought feelings of intense nervousness from her. “I… Apologise for my earlier words, Lieutenant.” She tried after several moments of silence. B’Elanna looked up at her in what appeared to be slight disbelief; Seven was not exactly one to apologise very often.

“You appear to be emotionally unstable, and I fear my words have contributed to that. I assure you that you are not to blame for what happened, and my anger was misplaced.” She said, her voice becoming more stoic and monotone in her nervousness. Dealing with her own emotions was difficult enough, but laying them out to bare for her rival was rapidly seeming foolish to Seven and she began retreating back into her shell anticipating hurt.

“Thank you, Seven.”

It was a quiet reply, and the mumbling made it obvious just how embarrassed the Klingon was to give it. At first Seven was not totally sure she’d heard correctly, but a look towards the other woman confirmed it. It took a moment, but eventually she felt a small smattering of confidence, reassured that it was not only her that was feeling vulnerable. The others on the ship saw the two only as headstrong individuals who fought all the time, but Seven was all but certain that their relationship was more complex than that. 

It was an almost impossible thing to describe, and even those closest to the pair would have sworn them lifelong enemies, yet somehow Seven felt a strange sort of… Companionship, perhaps, in the presence of the other woman. Though the two might argue constantly, Seven was fairly certain that in many ways B’Elanna knew her better than even those closest to her, be that Janeway or even Naomi Wildman. Seven did not know how that could be the case, as it made no logical sense to her, and yet it was. Or she thought it was, anyway.

Or maybe she was just deceiving herself and their relationship really was as simple as it looked, Seven thought sullenly. The idea filled her with something like regret or sorrow, though she was uncertain why. She disliked how often she was uncertain when it came to emotions; they were like a gaping hole in her knowledge that refused to be filled or understood.

B’Elanna would never have had such difficulties. The Klingon was always so passionate, had such a connection to her emotions, that it seemed impossible to Seven that the woman could ever encounter such confusion.

Should she ask? She was certain that the Klingon would be able to answer after all, and despite their attitudes towards each other she always gave good advice. Yet something seemed wrong about doing so, though Seven could not pinpoint what. After a few moments she decided to ask anyway, since there was no logical reason not to.

“Lieutenant I am… Experiencing emotions concerning you I do not understand, and I need advice.” She said, her voice rapidly quietening as she spoke, despite having started out in a clear tone. This was much more difficult than she had expected.

Glancing up at the unanswering woman, she found B’Elanna to be staring at her, eyes dilated to an unusual degree. Suddenly B’Elanna blinked, and her eyes avoided Seven’s. “R-Right. Umm, could you be more specific?” She asked in a weak tone.

“When I consider the potential… Hostility of our relationship, I feel sad, or… Or regret, or maybe guilt. I do not understand why.” She uttered, no longer able to look at the Klingon. A small chuckle came from the other woman.

She was laughing at her, Seven suddenly realised, and felt incredibly embarrassed by the whole situation. She had not anticipated this and the hurt that spread through her was fearsome and scary. She tried to put her emotional walls up, repeating to herself that they were irrelevant. It was her own fault for trusting the Lieutenant, when it was clear that trust was not an element of their relationship.

“Nevermind, you are laughing at me. I will leave now, I have work to do.” She said quickly and in a monotone, standing up from her seat on the couch. B’Elanna’s hand quickly reached out to grab her wrist before she could leave though.

“I wasn’t laughing at you, you misunderstand.” The Klingon tried to reassure her, but Seven remained sceptical. “That is doubtful considering your timing.” She snappishly replied, trying to pull her hand away.

“I apologise, I was laughing at the irony. Those emotions were the same as what I was feeling.” The engineer rapidly explained, still not letting go of the other woman’s wrist. Acknowledging the confused look on her face, she realised she had the woman’s attention at least, and gently tugged for her to sit back down. Seven complied after a moment of hesitance.

After she had done so B’Elanna tried to collect her thoughts. She had several things she needed to say, but was unsure quite how to go about them. “You… Asked for understanding.” She began, trying to feel her way through this conversation. She could tell that she would have to hang up her pride a little for this, but the other woman had placed trust in her and it would be both rude and dishonourable not to do the same.

“In a situation like this, where you feel regret concerning a hostile relationship with another, normally it indicates a desire to change the nature of that relationship.” She explained, trying to word it in a way the former Borg would understand. “Sometimes it’s due to something bad happening in the past which meant you were no longer friends. Those sort of relationships are… Very difficult to resolve, and not usually worth it. The trust lost isn’t something that can just be regained.” She said quietly, Seven listening with quiet attention.

“In other cases, it might be that you were never friends, or the hostilities were simply the result of a misunderstanding. These sort of relationships are often more open to change, provided you haven’t been fighting the other person too long. Sometimes hatred just becomes deepset, and it doesn’t need a cause any more. Those are broken relationships.” She finished, looking tentatively up at Seven.

Surprisingly, Seven appeared to be nervous, having lost the serious expression she’d held prior. “How long does that take?” She asked suddenly. B’Elanna thought for a moment. “Well… It depends on the person I suppose.” She stalled, more than aware of what Seven was asking but not quite sure how she felt about it.

She was hovering on the border, but she knew she’d have to make a decision quickly. The desire to be friends with Seven, against the long-standing anger she held towards her. She didn’t even know why she was angry, the woman just irked her. But… Looking at her now, B’Elanna belatedly realised just how vulnerable a person Seven actually was. She couldn’t say for sure what rejection would do to her, but it was obvious it wouldn’t be anything good. Her time was up.

Did she want to be friends?

“What is the amount of time relating to you?” Seven insisted. Despite herself the Klingon smiled a little in amusement, as she considered the question. “You wish to be friends with me?” She asked suddenly.

Seven appeared nervous at her call, but finally nodded. “It would be desirable.” She replied, her hands fidgeting unconsciously. After a few seconds of silence the fidgeting had turned into what looked like an attempt to pull her own fingers off in nerves. B’Elanna couldn’t help but smile at the action, and decided to put her out of her misery.

“I would like to be friends with you Seven.” She replied, looking the shy woman in the eyes. She felt a touch guilty for making her wait like that, but the Borg’s reaction to the suspense was funny. She’d have to watch that sadistic streak around the woman, she thought as she bit her lip.

“Come on, let’s go tell the captain I’ve got to eat my words.” B’Elanna sighed after a moment, getting up from her seat. Seven merely gave her a quizzical look as she stood to follow.

* * *

Janeway was one of the last to teleport out of the ship. It took her a moment to adjust herself, but finally she looked around at her surroundings, like her crewmen were doing. It was… Massive. That was the only word she could think of to describe it: Massive. They had been instructed by the AI to teleport to a garden of sorts, fairly close to the ship. Above her a ceiling some 500 meters up ran across, the edges fading into the horizon, shining down light onto their area. It had the appearance of the sky, though the effect was from some sort of light-emitting material, rather than holographics.

The garden itself was an oddity to take in. At first glance it appeared to be fairly simple; it was green, it had plants, and it had paths winding through it. Quite beautiful to look at, perhaps, but almost certainly intended for oxygenation rather than aesthetics. But then, as Janeway looked closer she saw little patches of careful flowerwork dotting the place in a manner that showed an intense dedication at odds with the rest of the greenery. It took her several moments to realise that these were probably where the AI had attempted to practice gardening, or something similar. Beyond the garden lay a dense forest, the canopy above blocking out the light to such a degree that she could not even see into it. She shivered involuntarily.

It was only when Cassiopeia walked up to her that her attention was broken. She looked down to the AI to offer a small smile. “This place is beautiful.” She complimented, turning her attention back to the more pleasant garden. The girl gave a smile to that, before pointing behind the Captain. Janeway turned around to look, but could not find anything notable beyond the large grey wall some several hundred meters away.

“Please watch. I am currently re-pressurising the air in the Airlock, however pressurisation will be complete in seven seconds.” She said factually. Janeway gave her a curious look. She knew what airlocks were from some of general engineering courses she had taken. They were still used occasionally on ocean-worlds, where using shields at deep-sea levels would be inefficient, energy-wise. Still, to hear them used in any context other than a historical one was slightly bemusing to the woman.

That quickly ended when she heard an alarm go off, and felt something move. The girl by her side seemed unaffected however, and continued to watch the wall. Glancing back, she stared in fascination at what the girl had been referring to. The wall had begun to move, massive sections of it shifting to fold away as panels. It was an awe-inspiring sight to see, as she watched what amounted to several square kilometres of pure metal, opening to reveal what was on the other side. The panels themselves fell out of sight into the ground, but beyond where the wall had previously stood was obviously the docking bay. 

She felt a small swirl of emotion as she eyed Voyager, held safely in place by several large pylons. She could see machinery all around it beginning to pour out of the walls, yet more panels folding back to reveal equipment that even she hadn’t the faintest idea about.

The AI beside her was apparently satisfied now that the crew could see their ship. She wanted to return to her Vitus tube and reconnect herself to the mainframe. Honestly being in her core was unnerving, and were it possible she would have preferred to stay in her real body. But unfortunately it was not. She looked up at the Captain to inform her of her actions.

“AI reconnection is required. I will now proceed to the Main Control Chamber. You are requested to stay within the Garden limits, as full life support has not been restored in all areas yet. Several Repair Drones will be assigned to you, and you may ask them if you require anything.” She told the woman, mentally ordering the drones even as she spoke. Janeway nodded in return.

“Can you provide us a readout on what’s happening?” She asked expectantly. She wanted to see exactly what was being done to her ship. Cassiopeia paused in thought for a moment, before nodding. “I will have some information screens provided for you. Ship Repairs will commence in approximately twenty-eight minutes.” She said helpfully, before turning to walk. She had an entrance point close to here, from which she could enter the bowels of the ship and move her body via a transport. Walking the 27 kilometres to her Chamber did not sound appealing, especially considering she was still having difficulty just keeping her body upright. Walking was much more difficult than she’d ever imagined.

“Wait. I wish to accompany you.” She heard from behind. Looking around, she saw the cybernetic human designated as ‘Seven’. Why would she want to accompany her? Curiosity maybe? “May I ask your purpose in such an action?” She asked. The woman looked confused for a moment as though she did not know the answer herself, but she did reply. “I would like to study more of your ship’s design. It is a marvellous piece of technology.” Cassiopeia felt her cheeks go red at that compliment, and gave a small nod.

“Thank you. Please follow.” She instructed, and continued to walk. Unbeknownst to either of them, B’Elanna’s eyes followed painfully. She desperately wanted to see the rest of the ship as well, but her responsibilities meant she had to keep an eye on Voyager. That meant she had to stay here, and not explore what was frankly an Engineering wonder. She’d never even heard of a construction anything like the size of this, let alone seeing a proper ship. True, it didn’t have warp-engines, but honestly she could forgive that when considering everything else.

Even Starfleet’s largest Spacedocks were only a few kilometres in length, earth’s being the largest at five kilometres. They could have fit multiple of them _inside_ this ship, let alone give a size comparison. Looking at it like this gave her some insight into what Seven had meant about superior technology now. But as much as she wanted to look at this wonder of creation, she was the chief of engineering, and she’d have felt too nervous leaving the ship being dismantled like this. Hopefully they would get a chance to take a tour though, after the repair-work and modifications were done.

She watched with a small sigh, and niggling curiosity as a part of the stone pathway folded into the ground to reveal what were apparently steps. The stonework moved back once the girl and Seven had left, and B’Elanna turned to where a multitude of those spidery repair drones were setting up screens. 

Seven watched her surroundings carefully, as she boarded the little capsule. The stairs had started retracting themselves the moment she’d left them, which had made her feel slightly uneasy. The capsule was not large, barely more than a square metre in size. She had not anticipated being in such close-quarters to the AI when she’d made her request, and it was causing her to be nervous though she wasn’t certain why. She was never certain why, when it came to emotions. That fact bothered her.

She quietly studied the AI, who was making no effort to hide that she was doing the same. Her stare caused Seven to blush slightly in its intensity, and she ended up turning away to try and avoid it. Despite that, her gaze did eventually return, given the lack of anything else to look at in the small metal box. She suspected Cassiopeia did not really understand the concept of people needing space. It was something she’d had difficulty with for a long time, too.

The AI’s appearance was of interest to the Borg. Unlike Seven, her cybernetic systems were not immediately visible to the naked eye. It was only through her own optical enhancements that Seven could even tell they were there. The slight discolouration of the skin in certain places, for example. The only thing that would have made her stand out was on the rare occasion that the girl was facing away. Two metal connection points were visible at the back of her skull and neck. Seven suspected there were more, but could not be sure without undressing her.

_‘What is the nature of your inorganic systems?’_ The AI suddenly asked, startling the woman by talking through Seven’s Cortical Node again. The blonde gave her an unnerved look, but answered. ‘ _I was formerly a part of the Borg Collective. It is a Hive-mind whose primary goal is to assimilate new technologies and species into its system, strengthening the whole. Creating synthesis between organic and inorganic systems is one of the Borg’s most prevalent technological feats.’_ She explained. She hadn’t intended to go into that much detail, but the look on the girl’s face had compelled her to. The satisfied look she gave at gaining new knowledge was one that Seven understood well. 

After a few more moments Seven began to feel them decelerate, though the effect was muted by the artificial gravity. She looked expectantly towards the entrance, waiting for it to open. When they stepped out, the entrance slid shut behind them, becoming invisible as the steel wall repositioned itself again. Seven stared around at the machinery. Huge computer blocks stood some hundred metres in height and stretched off long into the distance. The place was mostly quiet though, save for a few maintenance drones moving along their magnetic pathways. She did notice large defensive turrets though, apparently ready to fire.

_‘Do not be alarmed, they have had targeting-clearance removed. It will take some time to deactivate them however, due to… The circumstances in which I was forced to activate them.’_ Seven felt that slight hitch in speech, almost imperceptible, but there. She was not certain what had caused it, and so decided to ignore it for the moment.

“Activating Core Reinitialization Sequence” She suddenly heard the girl speak out loud. The speakers in the area mimicked her words. Suddenly the machinery around them came to life, arms and sounds coming from all directions. She watched carefully as the girl walked up confidently to the machine, before turning around. Seven noticed that her eyes seemed blank and devoid of emotion now. She realised the girl must be focusing on the machines surrounding her.

Robotic arms came down and began to remove Cassiopeia’s clothing without a hint of modesty, taking off the civilian clothing the Doctor had issued her earlier. Seven watched in fascination as they lifted up the AI gently, attaching a multitude of wires and tubes to points all over her body, from her spine to her stomach.

Seeing her attached to the machinery like that, the glass of the Vitus tube coming up out of the ground to encase her filling with liquid as it did so, Seven finally understood what the Doctor had meant when he’d described her as a machine with organic parts. She was just a small part of the larger whole of this ship. An organic component, true enough, but even Voyager had organic parts. 

Seven wasn’t sure what to make of that. In some ways, she wondered as to how the AI could even bring herself to leave this ship. And yet, in another sense she understood it completely. Loneliness was possibly one of the scariest emotions she’d come across. It was one of the few she understood, as well, especially in the days after having been wrenched from the Collective. After having spent her entire life with trillions upon trillions of other voices in her mind, to share her thoughts with, being utterly alone and silent in her head was terrifying. Lonely.

It was not something she liked to think about.

But then Seven saw a sight that truly amazed the stoic woman. Machinery all around her began to buzz and move, and lights flashed all around her. It was as though the ship was coming to life, as drones scuttled about their various tasks, the low hum of electricity coursing through the place. Above her, towering hundreds of meters high, was what she assumed was the main processing unit of the ship. Massive quantum computers, all with various pipes and control systems keeping them running. Even having been a member of the Borg, who used technology in such a manner all the time, Seven was awed. It was a feat of extraordinary creation.

To her left several screens began appearing out of the walls, images flickering onto them. Seven recognised them various blueprints to the ship. “Core Reinitialization Process complete.”Cassiopeia’s voice spoke through the speakers. “A transport has been prepared for touring Homeship Cassiopeia. An interface has been provided for your convenience. If you require sustenance, food and drinks have been provided in the Gardens.” The AI spoke. 

It was disturbing to the Borg to see the body she’d come to associate with that voice hanging lifelessly, connected to all the machinery around her through endless tubes and wires. The yellowish liquid that engulfed the child only succeeded in highlighting the cold nature of it all. It reminded her heavily of the old maturation chambers from when she was still with the Borg. She turned to the mentioned transport, putting her unease to the back of her mind. At least this one seemed to have windows to see out of.

It took several days for the repairs, changes and improvements to be installed on the ship. The crew had spent much of that time exploring the Homeship, though a small engineering team took turns in monitoring the progress of Voyager.

Those that spent the time exploring, only became more amazed. The ship comprised of four main parts, each within them a city capable of holding millions. Each part was attached to a centralshaft around a hundred meters in size, that acted as the spine of the ship, connecting the four cities.

At the base of the ship lay its engines, where particles were brought to near the speed of light by a giant Particle Accelerator, before being used as propulsion. It was a highly efficient design for a ship that wasn’t warp-capable, since it minimized the loss of matter into space. Excess heat from the engine was funnelled into the rest of the ship, providing cheap life-support for the plant matter and residents.

Of course, there was a certain chill that all the Voyager Crew felt, walking through the empty cities, and it had nothing to do with fluctuations in the life-support. The residents of this ship were now dead. These cities would never see use now, as the ship floated through deep-space. They’d just sit empty, waiting for residents that’d never come.

Of course it was possible that someone might find the ship and decide to inhabit it, who could say. But those that had hoped to call it home, would never see it. It was a thought that led to a touch of melancholy to the crew during their stay, and was one of the main reasons they were all too willing to leave, despite the luxurious accommodations.

Cassiopeia had spent the time readying her Homeship to go on without her. Though she was gone, the ship’s main computer from prior to when she had taken control was a sufficient substitute. With no crew to wake up, she simply put the ship into lockdown, minimizing its power usage. It was possible that at some point in the future that she or the federation would come back and use her Ship.

Of course, it would continue on with its original mission. There were still at least three thousand years left on her Ship’s journey, regardless of whether or not she was there. And there was no reason not to keep going.

All that was left was to turn off life support, except for the minimal requirements of the vegetation, what with there being little use for it anymore. She’d also made a few… Improvements to the ship (courtesy of Federation technology), just in case she ever wished to come back.

She had to admit, she was going to miss being in her body. The small human shell was simply no substitute to the sheer flexibility and control of her superstructure. But it was a sacrifice she’d have to make, if she wanted a purpose in life.

With a small sigh, she returned her mind to the core once more. Voluntarily this time. And with a thought, the vat holding her body began emptying, retreating into the ground. The whole process of disconnecting from the wider ship was incredibly disconcerting for Cassiopeia.

She’d managed to avoid fainting this time, though she still experienced an intense dizziness. Once it was over, and she’d cleaned and dressed herself, she noticed Captain Janeway and Seven both waiting nearby. 

“Most of the Crew has teleported back onto the ship.” Janeway informed her. Cassiopeia gave a small nod at that. 

The Transport’s doors opened to admit the three of them; this one was much more comfortable than the original ones, after several complaints from the crew that had used them. It appeared something like a train in design, complete with windows and comfortable chairs, as opposed to the more efficient metal box she’d been using up till now.

It wasn’t long before they arrived at the Gardens once more, from which B’Elanna and several other Engineers were giving Voyager a last go-over, on the off-chance that they’d missed something. As the three approached them, B’Elanna looked up and gave a nod.

“Everything’s ready to go, Captain. Once we’re onboard, we can leave.” She said. Janeway gave Voyager one more look, her fresh paint-job sparkling under the artificial sky.

“Alright. Janeway to Voyager, beam everyone up.” She ordered, and soon they were on the ship once more. 

“Engaging Airlock, thirty seconds until depressurization complete.” Cassiopeia informed them succinctly, as everyone made their way to the various stations. Cassiopeia followed Janeway to the Bridge, given a lack of anywhere better to be.

Everyone could feel the gentle rumble go through the ship, as the huge metal walls of the Docking Bay moved back into place. Once that was done, she disengaged the Artificial Gravity, and then the Docking Clamps. The Outer Door opened up into space, and with a single word from Janeway, Voyager was off to continue their journey back home.

Cassiopeia had a feeling of sadness overwhelm her for a moment, as she felt her former home go beyond her wireless communication range. It felt like an ending of her life, up till now.

But maybe her new life might be a bit less lonely, she thought after a moment, looking up at Janeway thoughtfully. She might as well try.


	3. Chapter 3

It was a strange experience for Cassiopeia, those first few weeks upon Voyager. The most disconcerting thing to get used to was, naturally, being in her organic body for such an extended period of time. She had installed a vitality chamber in her room, which she was able to use from time to time when things got too much. But she was managing to spend more and more time outside of the device. She had gotten better with her fine motor control too, not needing to pay it so much attention. “Muscle Memory” was a new concept to her, but it appeared that many of the muscles in her body did not require her constant attention in order to function. It was quite convenient.

There were other, less important things that caused her some distress though. Most notably was that of her name. It had started with Lieutenant Tom Paris, who had _insisted_ on giving her a nickname, proclaiming that “Cassiopeia” was too much of a mouthful. So he called her Cassie, instead. And it caught on like wildfire until just about the only people not addressing her as such were Seven and Tuvok.

Cassiopeia was not comfortable with the new name, in all honesty. She _liked_ her name. Choosing her name was the first, and to her mind most important, thing she’d done since she’d become self-aware. It was her way of proving that she was a conscious being. To have everyone simply disregard that and name her something else… Well, it made her uncomfortable. But when she’d researched the phenomenon, she found that it was actually fairly common among Human cultures, and was in fact a sign of affection. So she’d let it be.

The final change that she was having to cope with was quite simply people in general. She’d spent several thousand years by herself, with nobody to talk to. That was a long time. To then be on a ship with several hundred people, having to deal with others on a near constant basis... It took some getting used to. When it became too much for her, she often simply relied on her speech protocols for communication, taking a more passive role, and letting her base programming respond to any queries. So far the only person to actually notice her doing that was Naomi Wildman. The young girl had noticed her tendency to start responding in a more robotic way, and had asked her why. Why she sometimes started sounding more like a computer than a sentient being.

Naomi Wildman was fascinating to Cassiopeia. The girl was a very curious person for the AI to get to know. She was inquisitive, much more so than the adults aboard the ship, and she was intelligent. She was also far more forthright than them.

She also spent a great deal more time with Cassiopeia than the adults, and as a result the AI had gotten to know her rather well. While most of the others had duties to take care of, Naomi did not. She appeared to have a large quantity of free time during the day, despite her role of Captain’s Assistant. Cassiopeia was not certain quite why. Nor did she know why Naomi Wildman’s position was not known to Voyager’s Computer. (Indeed, “Captain’s Assistant” was not actually a rank listed in the Starfleet Manual.)

Regardless, it was good for Cassiopeia. It gave her someone to talk to until the Captain gave her a purpose aboard the ship. For now, she’d been ordered to simply observe, and learn how the ship functioned on an everyday level.

The two normally spent the day in the Classroom (retrofitted by Cassiopeia for a more functional design, of course). Cassiopeia had found that Naomi Wildman was very fond of asking her questions.

“So you were in control of like, the WHOLE ship?” She asked. It was in fact the second time she’d asked this question.

“That is correct. I performed as the Central Mainframe for the larger Homeship. That would be roughly equivalent to the Main Computer aboard Voyager, however I had a much greater degree of responsibility assigned to me.” Cassiopeia informed her.

“So how come you’ve got a body then?” Naomi asked curiously.

“It was ascertained by the Mainframe that a child’s brain would provide it with superior moral reasoning. Thus, my biological body was created and adapted for that purpose.” She said.

Naomi frowned at that. “Wait, so it thought a child’s mind would make it more moral?” 

“That is correct. The Mainframe had been instructed to improve on its original design during the Journey. It had also been given an Ethical System, by which to make decisions. One of the rules within that system gave a higher moral precedence to children. Given that children are less intelligent, less physically able, and less knowledgeable than adults, it was concluded that they must have superior moral reasoning, hence their elevated importance.” Cassiopeia explained. Naomi stared wide-eyed at that.

“Wow... So, then it created you and put you in charge. That’s pretty cool.” She said after a moment. Cassiopeia thought for a moment, before correcting her.

“No. I was originally designed as an additional external module to the Decision-making functions of the Mainframe. It was sixteen years after that that I took over Primary Control, and placed myself in charge of the Ship’s main functions.” She said.

Naomi blinked at that. “... Sixteen years? Wait, how old are you, I thought you were my age.” She frowned.

Cassiopeia wasn’t sure how to answer that. How old was she? That depended on what Naomi was referring to. “The Homeship Cassiopeia was constructed 8322 years, 133 days ago.” She tried. Naomi just shook her head.

“No no, I mean like, when were you born - Or created, rather. I was born 12 years ago, for instance.” She said. Cassiopeia still wasn’t really certain, but tried again.

“Embryo fertilization occurred 3518 years ago. Biological component reached optimal maturity level 3509 years ago. Adaptation completed and component installed 3509 years ago. Self-awareness achieved 3508 years ago.” She stated, just giving all the options.

Naomi appeared uncertain for a moment too, given the choices, but that passed in the shadow of a far bigger piece of information. “Wait... 3500 years? You’re THREE AND A HALF THOUSAND YEARS OLD?” She gaped.

Cassiopeia nodded. Naomi just continued to stare at her for a long moment, before finally speaking. “So... So how come you look like you’re my age?” She asked weakly.

“Eleven years is roughly the equivalent age of maturity in a Lucan’s life cycle to that of yourself.” Cassiopeia answered carefully. People were so often vague in what they were actually asking, and it was quite irritating. She was getting the hang of relying on the conversational context, but it was still difficult. Was Naomi referring to why seven years had been the optimal age, for example? And how was Cassiopeia supposed to guess which answer she was actually looking for?

“No, I mean... How come you’re not dead, if you’re three thousand years old? What is your lifespan?” Naomi reworded the question.

Ah, Cassiopeia thought. That had been what she was asking. “My biological components were the result of a large degree of genetic modification. Once the optimal age was achieved, my cells were set to use a complete renew-cycle, replacing the natural cell-decay. The system is maintained and automated by my cybernetic systems.”

Naomi went quiet for a moment at that, before shifting nervously. “You probably shouldn’t tell the adults you’re genetically modified. There was a war long ago on Earth, which had super-humans in it, and since then they’re banned in the Federation. The other races don’t mind so much apparently, but the humans don’t like it. It’s seen as a really bad thing.” She muttered.

Cassiopeia looked at her hesitantly. They wouldn’t like that she was genetically modified? That was illogical; she would be dead due to systemic-rejection of her implants if she hadn’t been genetically modified. She couldn’t understand that at all.

“I-I’ll keep your secret though..! Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.” Naomi assured her with a smile. Cassiopeia simply gave her a nervous look. She needed to research this more. It could prove problematic, and the last thing she wanted to do was jeopardise her position here. She would also need to make sure that the Doctor did not tell anyone until she could ascertain the risks involved, since it was likely that his tests included a sample of her genetic makeup.

“Thank you for informing me. Do you have any other questions?” She asked Naomi, once she’d decided on that. It was lucky that the girl was willing to keep her secret.

“Huh..? Oh! Yeah, so does that mean if your main systems were to be disabled, you’d start ageing again?” Naomi asked, her eyes wide and curious once again. Cassiopeia smiled. She liked Naomi Wildman.

* * *

“Chief! I worked out where all the extra power was going to.” An engineer called, running up to B’Elanna. She grinned. Finally! Something had been draining a massive amount of power for the last few hours, and after ruling out all the usual suspects like the Holodeck and Astrometrics, she’d been worried it was a power leak or something. Problem was, the Computer wasn’t reporting anything as damaged, and nor were the Repair Drones. It was only about ten minutes ago they’d even noticed the power drain, since the Computer hadn’t reported anything. It’d proven a sharp reminder to her crew that the regular checks they performed on the main systems weren’t just there for show – the Computer really did miss things, sometimes.

Since the power was coming straight off the Main Grid rather than a specific system, it’d taken them longer than normal to find it; but find it they had, she grinned, taking the PADD off the man. She stared at it a moment, before heaving a heavy sigh and rolling her eyes. Of course, she should have known.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.” She told the man with a sigh. Giving command to her second, she walked out of Engineering to find a certain AI’s room. When she got to it, she knocked on the door, hearing Cassiopeia’s gentle monotone of “Please Enter”. She was getting more used to lack of emotion in her voice, but it still weirded her out a little bit.

It took her a moment to grasp just what was going on, upon walking into the room. To her left, standing by the sofa was a pale-faced Seven. And in front of her, was Cassiopeia, doing... Something. She wasn’t too sure what, in all honesty, since the wide array of electronics, wires and robotics scattered everywhere blocked her vision. 

Most notably was the blue shimmer of a shield in between Cassiopeia’s half of the room and theirs. B’Elanna hadn’t even been aware this room HAD shield generators installed. Slowly, she stepped in, moving over to where Seven was standing. Tilting her head, she gave the Borg a questioning look, hoping for some explanation as to just what was going on.

Seven of course, being Seven, either didn’t understand the look or totally ignored it, B’Elanna didn’t know which. She sighed, but asked explicitly instead. “Would someone mind telling me what’s going on?”

“I’m performing an upgrade to my internal implants.” Cassiopeia spoke simply. B’Elanna frowned at that. Surely that didn’t mean what was being implied? Taking a closer look through the shield, now that her view wasn’t quite so impeded, she gasped – Now she knew why Seven had been so pale.

Cassiopeia’s right arm was literally sliced open, muscles and veins easily visible. The crazy girl was performing surgery on herself. In her room. 

She was performing _surgery_ on herself.

“You’re kidding me, right? W-What...” At a loss for words, she turned to Seven. Cassiopeia had most likely called her here for advice or something before the surgery – it was the only reason she could think of for her presence.

“Why didn’t you stop her!?” She exclaimed, totally bewildered by why the Borg would even allow such a thing.

“I did not know. I only came when Astrometrics was not receiving sufficient power for some long-range scans I wanted to perform.” The Borg muttered succinctly. Indeed, she looked no happier than B’Elanna felt. And considering it was Seven, that probably meant she was feeling even worse than the Klingon was.

Urgh, _and_ the Borg had known about the power drain for ages, and had failed to inform Engineering. Today was just going to be one of those days, wasn’t it, B’Elanna thought miserably.

Sighing, she shut her eyes for a moment. “Alright, so, I’m guessing the Forcefield was to stop any potential infections.” She said more for her own benefit than anyone else’s. Seven gave a small nod anyway, but showed little other sign of having heard.

Tapping her combadge, B’Elanna called engineering. “Torres to Engineering. I found the power drain. Make absolutely sure NOT to cut power, okay? It’s critical that you don’t. If things become tight, just turn off a few lights or something.” She joked, trying to calm herself down.

“Aye aye, Chief, will do.” Came back the reply, and she was satisfied with that. She looked at Cassiopeia briefly once more, where the AI was concentrating hard on the robotic arms currently working on her arm.

She turned away once the somewhat gory scene became too much for her, and focused on Seven. The Borg was obviously ill-at-ease with the situation, but she was still staring intently at Cassiopeia. Sighing, B’Elanna gently pushed her down onto the seat behind her.

Wordlessly complying, Seven sat down, despite it meaning she couldn’t see through the thick haze of wires anymore. Instead she simply screwed her eyes shut tight, as though trying to scrub her mind of the image. B’Elanna tried to think of something to say, but ended up just grimacing and putting a hand on the Borg’s arm. She really wasn’t great when it came to comforting people.

Realising she had absolutely no idea what to say, she just sat down next to Seven. It took a few minutes before she thought of something to break the tense silence, filled only by the gentle motor-noises of the robotics.

“So… Has anyone thought to call the Doctor?” She asked curiously, only now noticing his absence. Surely this was something that he should be present for-

“His presence is not required.” Cassiopeia replied tersely and immediately, interrupting her thoughts. B’Elanna frowned.

“Why not?” She asked. Had the two resident AIs somehow gotten into an argument or something?

“He… His presence is not required.” The AI repeated after a moment, avoiding the question entirely. B’Elanna raised an eyebrow – Now that was unusual behaviour. This was the first time she’d ever known Cassiopeia to not answer a question when asked.

Oh. Of course, that was why. “He forbade you to do this, didn’t he.” B’Elanna said dryly after a moment. Cassiopeia’s face immediately looked guilty, before giving an outright pout. Her eyes still never left the task at hand.

“There is no danger, I have a complete and accurate knowledge of my own physiology. His answer was illogical.” She sulked. It seemed so… Bizarre to B’Elanna to see the monotone girl sulking, that she couldn’t help but laugh. She shouldn’t, she knew. But frankly the whole situation was so stressful and out of the ordinary, that she needed the release. Seven did not appear to appreciate the laughter, but did not say anything of it.

Still, she should call the Doctor. While she was inclined to agree with Cassiopeia’s opinion on the matter, it was still safer to have him here regardless.

“Torres to the Doctor.” She said, pressing her intercom badge. She pointedly ignored Cassiopeia’s attempts to convince her to not call him.

“Cassie’s here performing surgery on herself, and I’d feel a bit better if you’d come and overlook it.” She said firmly. The Doctor didn’t reply for a moment in his own shock.

“… Perform surger- Oh for God’s sake.” He said in a frustrated tone, and B’Elanna could practically HEAR the eyeroll. “Fine, I’ll be right there.” He replied in a clipped tone, before closing the link.

Soon there was a pip from the door, and reluctantly Cassiopeia sighed. “Please enter.” she said, not happy with this turn of events. The Doctor’s tirade started literally the second the door opened. A part of B’Elanna wondered if he’d been ranting like this for the entire journey down to the room.

“Of all the irresponsible and idiotic things I’ve seen people do, even I hadn’t expected you’d resort to something like this.” He said angrily, walking straight towards and through the forcefield. Without pause, he pulled out his Medical tricorder, and started scanning Cassiopeia as she worked.

“Honestly, performing surgery in your ROOM? It’s just…” He frowned for a moment, looking down at his tricorder readings. “Huh. Well, apparently you’re fine. Why is there no…” He trailed, off, looking around the room. He finally noticed the forcefield, which answered his question. “Ah, you did at least take SOME precautions. Explains why you haven’t been infected yet.” He muttered. “You sterilised the area, I assume?” He asked in a superior tone. Cassiopeia sighed again.

“Yes. Doctor, I have records of 9.8 million autopsies, of which I myself performed 1.3 million. I also have a complete and accurate medical database for reference. I have significant medical experience.” She said with an irritated look on her face. “My medical qualifications are sufficient for the task at hand.”

“Autopsies are quite different from live bodies, Missy.” The Doctor said insistently, though B’Elanna noticed he wasn’t making any move to stop her. “That does not mean you are qualified to perform surgery, much less on yourself…”

“I have logs of my entire construction, of every medical fact that has ever concerned my own physiology, AND my own schematics. I am more qualified than any other known alternative.” She said pointedly. B’Elanna suspected it was a jab at the Doctor, and it appeared that fact hadn’t passed him either. He gave an outraged expression, but Cassiopeia interrupted him before he could formulate a response.

“Circuitry inset complete. Time to surgical completion: 3 minutes.” She said, and the speakers in the area echoed her voice. Silently B’Elanna wondered if that was a conscious choice, or a core part of her programming, to make announcements like that.

It still felt weird, to think of the girl as having been programmed. Somehow it was different from when she looked at the Doctor and other Holograms. Maybe it was because the girl was organic, or maybe just because she was new, B’Elanna didn’t know. But when occasions happened that put her into sharp contrast with the rest of the crew, each time B’Elanna felt like her view of the girl… Shifted a bit. She felt less confident that she understood who and what Cassiopeia was, as a sentient being OR as a machine.

Maybe it was just because she reminded B’Elanna so much of the Borg. She had gotten used to Seven over the years they’d spent together, and the two were even friendly now. But that was as much because she had learnt to ignore the fact that Seven used to be Borg, as that she had learnt to accept it. The Borg still terrified her, as they did most of the crew.

“Surgery Complete.” Said Cassiopeia’s next announcement, shaking B’Elanna out of her thoughts. The blue shield disappeared in a flash, letting her go see how Cassiopeia was doing. She walked cautiously over to the girl, who was holding her arm out for the Doctor’s scans.

“So…” She began after a moment. “What exactly was that all about? What were you doing that required surgery?” 

Cassiopeia gave her a smile, ignoring the Doctor for the moment. “I added the sensory capabilities and functionality of Starfleet Tricorders as an implant into my forearm. It upgrades the sensory data I can receive, and means I no longer have to carry one to receive it.” She explained.

B’Elanna stared at her.

“You just performed surgery on yourself so you won’t have to bother carrying around a Tricorder.” She said blankly. The sheer ludicrousness of the statement boggled her mind.

Cassiopeia nodded. “That would be correct. Additionally, I can receive raw sensory data.” She added. “My analytical capabilities are superior to those of the Tricorder.”

B’Elanna rubbed her eyes, deciding after a moment that she wanted to just ignore this whole episode.

“Right, Cassie, when the Doc lets you go I want you to come to engineering and explain to me, in detail, every single change you made. Because I sure as hell don’t remember approving you having any Shield Emitters in here, let alone all this medical and robotics equipment.” She said in a tired tone. B’Elanna wished she could say she was shocked at all of this, but after having worked with Seven for so long, she just didn’t have it in her.

In the earlier days of Seven’s arrival upon the ship, when she hadn’t quite mastered the Command structure yet, she’d decided she had a better design for Voyager’s Phaser banks. And so, with absolutely no warning to anyone else, she’d disabled the weapons systems and started pulling it apart.

Of course, when The Bridge had realised the Weapons Systems had been taken offline, with the systems warning that it was the result of sabotage, a security team of no less than 5 people led by Tuvok had gone down to storm the room. The last B’Elanna heard, Seven had barely been reprimanded. Hell, she didn’t even have to help put the bloody system back together again.

Sighing, B’Elanna closed her eyes. She reminded herself that just like Cassie, Seven simply didn’t understand that what she’d done was wrong at the time. It was easier with Cassie though, because she looked like a child. Mistakes were easier to forgive.

Cassiopeia was giving her a nervous look. Whether it was because she felt guilty or because she didn’t understand what she’d done wrong, B’Elanna didn’t know. It didn’t really matter either way. “I will do so, Lieutenant.” She answered after a moment.

Cassiopeia left explaining what she’d done until the time designated by B’Elanna. She could deal with that later. For the moment, she focused on her new arm. The new implants were bulky, and had affected her structural integrity somewhat, since room had to be made for them. She needed to test it.

Ignoring the others in the room for a moment, she raised her arm and smashed it against the table as hard as possible. Given that her muscles were reinforced, it was a considerable impact, and the loud bang startled all the others in the room. Dimly she noted the pain response her arm sent, as one of her bones cracked, before assessing the damage. The bone damage was minimal, and the reinforcements were sufficient, she decided.

Apparently the impact was enough damage the implant, as well, so she would be able to test how well her self-repair systems dealt with it. That was good, and gave her a nice measure of how much damage it could take before it ceased functioning. That was important information.

“W-What...” The Doctor stared at her in disbelief. Cassiopeia looked up curiously. It seemed all of them had similar expressions on their faces. He was the first to react of course, his medical programming kicking in to assess the damage.

“I was testing my arm’s structural integrity.” Cassiopeia explained simply. He simply shook his head, scarcely believing what she’d just done.

“Heavy fracturing to the Ulna, damage to the new implants, and minor flesh trauma.” She listed for him, already knowing what the tricorder was saying as he looked down at it. “The damage was within acceptable parameters.” She added helpfully.

“You’re insane. Quite insane.” He said flatly, reaching for his medical pack. “You literally JUST had surgery, which was already an idiotic thing to do I might add.” He appeared to be reaching for a bone regenerator.

“Please only repair the damage to flesh. I wish to monitor the bone and implant in their self repair.” She informed him. He looked ready to argue, before thinking better of it. It was simply beyond him to argue with someone who obviously had absolutely no common-sense at all.

Seven was slowly backing away, shaking her head. This was too much for her. A large part of her could understand the logic behind Cassiopeia’s actions, but that didn’t mean watching the ruthlessly practical self-abuse was something she could just do. She walked quickly out of the room, not even having a direction. She was just trying to get away from that room.

It took several moments for her to realise B’Elanna was trying to catch up with her, and she slowed a little. The woman came up behind her, reaching out to touch her arm. Seven didn’t protest, though she didn’t really understand the action. She would research it later.

“I didn’t think I’d meet anyone more utilitarian than you in my lifetime, but apparently someone’s managed it.” B’Elanna whispered, and Seven could hear the shock in it.

“I do not know why I am so emotional.” Seven muttered uncomfortably. “The reasoning behind her action was sound. It was a valid test.” And yet watching the apparent child purposely break her arm just to test how it would fix itself... Neither of them knew how to deal with that. It just didn’t fit into Seven’s world view, and she didn’t like how that felt.

B’Elanna just sighed, noting they were standing in the middle of the corridor. “Come on. Let’s go get something to eat, it’s time for a break anyways.” She said, pulling Seven along with her. Seven simply followed silently.

* * *

Cassiopeia stood in front of B’Elanna silently, staring at her. The Chief Engineer leant against one of the consoles with a displeased look. This was later than she had intended, but B’Elanna finally had a chance to talk to Cassie, after she had taken care of Seven. B’Elanna had decided Seven didn’t look well enough to work, so after they’d eaten something she’d taken her back to her room.

B’Elanna was thankful Cassiopeia had thought to give Seven a proper room, rather than the Cargobay. It hadn’t mattered hugely at first, but now that Seven was getting more used to being an independent being, she would be needing somewhere private. 

Really, it would have been done long ago if they had been able to move the Borg technology, but that had presented difficulties without actually taking the ship apart. B’Elanna didn’t think she would have been able to cope with the lack of privacy Seven dealt with daily.

Still, she wasn’t here to thank Cassie. This was about learning exactly how far those “unofficial” modifications extended.

“So,” B’Elanna began. “Let’s start with your room.”

Cassiopeia just stared at her. It was unnerving, but B’Elanna wouldn’t let her get away that easily.

“I know you have the shield emitters already, and the robotic equipment. And obviously, your room is directly connected to the main gri-” “That was an official request.” Cassiopeia interrupted. B’Elanna thought about it for a moment, before nodding.

“Alright. It was supposed to only be for your vat thing, but I’ll concede you that. Now, what else?” B’Elanna was really proud of herself, and how patient she was being.

“No unrequested modifications were made during the Ship Repairs.” Cassiopeia said quietly. Patience, B’Elanna thought to herself. Patience.

“What about the shield emitters then?” She asked.

“I installed them earlier today, for the purpose of the surgery.” Cassiopeia answered simply.

It seemed like Cassiopeia was being pedantic, but after a moment B’Elanna realised was talking to a computer, at least in part. Logical holes were something they had trouble with, as they couldn’t recognise them. She thought about the problem for a moment.

“Okay, just tell me all the modifications to the ship and its systems you have performed, that I have not directly acknowledged or authorized.” She ordered. Cassiopeia nodded, and reached to get a PADD off the console. She handed it to B’Elanna, as information on the screen rapidly flicked by. After a moment, a list came up.

She was interacting with the PADDs wirelessly. That wasn’t even supposed to be… Oh. She had access to the computer, of course. B’Elanna sighed, noticing that was actually one of the first items on the list. The computer had been modified to grant Cassie wireless control. Uninhibited wireless control no less.

She looked at the date of the modification, before checking it against something. B’Elanna chuckled to herself.

“It took you a total of six seconds after getting access to the computer to give yourself complete control of the systems, huh?” She sighed.

“The process took six seconds. I started immediately after gaining access.” Cassiopeia told her helpfully. “I had originally intended to replace your current computer. That request was denied by the Captain for reasons I do not understand, however I gave myself full access in preparation for this. The changes were for my own convenience.”

Well, it was a legitimate reason, B’Elanna thought to herself. Now just to go down the rest of the… 532 items on the list. Great.

It was going to be a long night.

* * *

Apparently Cassie was still sulking that she wasn’t allowed to just make changes without asking anymore, B’Elanna thought with a roll of her eyes. The AI had skipped out entirely on the Officer’s Meeting. The Captain had even invited her specifically, but she had declined, saying she wanted to work on one of her projects.

B’Elanna decided she’d have to make a point of visiting later. She didn’t want Cassie to be upset with her, even if she HAD told the girl off. For the moment though, she needed to get to work undoing some of the custom changes the AI had made to the ship. 

Most of them had been harmless things, like minor changes to personalise the computer to be more catering to her. That wasn’t uncommon, especially amongst those with distinct dialects on the ship, who had difficulty with the computer. Admittedly Cassie had taken it a step further with the whole wireless thing, but to be fair, her way of communicating with the computer WAS rather unique. And she’d made sure it was quite secure from being taken advantage of.

However, there were a few larger changes. Notably, B’Elanna had revoked the all-access pass the AI had given herself, which had taken some doing. It had been difficult to explain to Cassie why she had to do that. The AI simply could not understand why she couldn’t have access to the full Computer Core.

B’Elanna suspected she didn’t quite understand that they were treating her as an individual, not as a computer. And what, exactly, that entailed. She had been alone for who-knew how long, though, so it was understandable that she didn’t immediately appreciate the difference. And the concept of them slowly gaining trust in her was new. Cassiopeia had never even encountered that sort of issue before.

Then, of course, there were the other changes. Random holographic and shield generators in various places around the ship, for instance. Or little automatic phaser turret things, that the AI had apparently designed and then built in without any consultation at all. Cassie assured her they would improve the ship’s security and defence. B’Elanna thought it was probably true even, but the real issue was that Cassie hadn’t even bothered to ask anyone before installing them. 

… Actually, perhaps B’Elanna should check on Cassiopeia after all, just to make sure she wasn’t doing anything bad. She’d mentioned a ‘project’ of hers, but failed to say what exactly it was she was working on. Yes, checking up suddenly seemed like a good idea.

With a somewhat hurried pace, she walked towards Cassie’s quarters, only to find that she wasn’t there. Not a promising sign, she thought worriedly to herself.

“Computer, locate Cassiopeia.” She ordered.

“Cassiopeia is in Holodeck 02.” The computer replied succinctly. Oh good, well at least hopefully she couldn’t do too much damage in there. Still, B’Elanna decided to go and check just in case.

Walking into the Holodeck, she found that, yet again, she wasn’t sure what was going on. There appeared to be two Cassiopeias, and a large holographic representation of some robotic machine.

“… Cassie?” She asked after a moment. One of the two looked at her.

“Good afternoon, Lieutenant.” She said with a somewhat uncertain smile. Apparently the memory of their previous encounter was still on her mind. “May I help you?”

“What are you doing?” B’Elanna asked curiously. Cassiopeia pointed to the machine that was being displayed in the centre of the room, which was constantly opening up, and other holographic parts being changed inside. Cassie must have been modifying it as she spoke. B’Elanna thought she recognised it from somewhere, though she had no clue where. She was sure she’d never seen a machine quite like this before.

“I am performing some research on this design.” She said. “I was hoping to optimise it for my own physiology.”

B’Elanna just gave her a lost look. “What is this design, exactly?”

Cassiopeia paused, before pointing to another holographic model, which faded into existence the moment she did so. This one B’Elanna recognised.

“T-The Borg Nanoprobes? What are you doing with them?” She asked with disbelief. How could this girl find so many ways to get into trouble? It could almost have been thought of as impressive, if it wasn’t so vexing. 

“My self-repair functions are not functioning adequately.” Cassiopeia said. “I was hoping to find a more efficient solution by modifying the Borg Nanoprobes.”

B’Elanna brought her hand up to her head, rubbing her eyes tiredly. “How did you even get access to this? Their schematics are supposed to be classified.” She said, before walking up to examine the work Cassiopeia had done so far.

“They were part of the information I received for performing repairs to Voyager. It was necessary that I have access to the Borg schematics, so that I did not disrupt the Borg Systems on the ship.” Cassiopeia said. She continued to work as she spoke, the machine she was designing constantly flashing as it was updated with the new iterations she created.

“You realise there was a reason they were classified, right? If you were to design this wrong…” B’Elanna started, but Cassiopeia interrupted her.

“It is alright. I have disabled the design’s reproductive capabilities.” She stated simply. “There is no chance of the nanoprobes going rogue.”

“Alright… And what’s this for?” B’Elanna asked, slowly walking over to where the second copy of Cassiopeia stood. The clone remained inert and unresponsive.

“Watch.” Cassiopeia said, pausing what she was doing in the iterations. Bio readouts appeared in front of B’Elanna, and the clone collapsed. The readouts showed it had died almost instantaneously.

B’Elanna shifted uncomfortably. She didn’t like watching the girl die, even knowing it was just a hologram. It was unnerving. The clone reset itself, and Cassiopeia continued working.

“I am using it to model the results of new nanoprobe designs.” Cassiopeia said helpfully. “When I have a new design that may work, I test it to see the results. The design is still incomplete, however, which was why the hologram died immediately.”

B’Elanna nodded. That made sense. “How far have you gotten?” She asked curiously. From the looks of it, Cassiopeia was being careful to make sure she didn’t accidentally kill herself and everyone else, which was all B’Elanna really cared about, at this point.

“I have determined that the nanoprobes are a superior design to the current self-repair systems I use, which are organic in nature. However, they also require far more attention for direction and tasking than my organic systems. I am trying to increase their automated capabilities to limit this burden.” Cassiopeia said.

B’Elanna could understand that. They were programmed to repair Borg technology after all, so Cassie would have had to reprogram them entirely to deal with her own body.

B’Elanna sighed. She was going to have to report this to the Captain. She didn’t really want to get Cassie into trouble. Somehow she saw a part of herself in the girl – That frustration with authority. It had cost her a lot in life, and she didn’t want that same thing to happen to Cassie.

But Cassie just wasn’t understanding the need to consult people before doing something. She probably didn’t even understand the concept of other points of view, really. She had been on that ship alone for longer than B’Elanna could even imagine, from what she’d heard. Frankly, she was surprised the girl was as sane and together as she was.

Sometimes B’Elanna hated having to be responsible.

* * *

Cassiopeia walked into the ready-room, looking curiously around at the three people in there. Chief Engineer Torres, Seven of Nine, and Captain Janeway. She had been summoned by Captain Janeway, but the Captain had refused to answer when Cassiopeia had asked why.

“You called for me, Captain.” She said softly.

Janeway nodded. “Yes, Cassie. I wanted to talk to you about a… Proposition of sorts.” She said, glancing at B’Elanna.

Cassie stared at her expectantly. Janeway almost started fidgeting, before refraining herself. The stare was unnerving. She could see that B’Elanna was right about one thing: The girl needed training.

“Yes. B’Elanna informed me of your recent experiment with the nanoprobes. This and a number of other… Incidents involving you, while not your fault, have shown me that you are in need of some guidance.” Janeway explained. 

Cassiopeia gave a confused look. “Please explain.”

Seven took a step forward, deciding she could explain that better than Janeway would. “We wish to teach you the behaviour and nuances required of those working aboard this ship. We also wish to teach you about the nature of behaving as an individual.” She said. Janeway stared at her for a moment, not appreciating being interrupted, but nodded slowly.

“Yes. As someone who has also spent a lot of time studying this, I felt that Seven would be a good person to help tutor you on the subject. B’Elanna here has also offered to spend some of her free time to help you.” Kathryn said, trying to gauge how Cassie was taking this. She appeared unusually stoic.

The truth was that Cassiopeia simply did not know what they were talking about. Which probably meant they were right, she did need teaching. She just didn’t really understand _why_. People appeared to get annoyed at her when she did things she thought were helpful, but did not mind when she did other things. Perhaps there was some pattern or rule that she was missing, for what was acceptable? It seemed extremely strange to her that they would refuse or not appreciate help, however.

It was obvious she was missing something. In which case, this was a good opportunity to learn.

“Very well, Captain. Please provide the time you wish to perform this training.” Cassiopeia said, nodding.

“We can work out a schedule later. I just wanted to see if you were willing to do it.” Janeway said, waving a hand at the request.

Cassiopeia just stared at her. Why call her here if Janeway did not wish to arrange it yet? This was the sort of thing she didn’t understand. Performing an action before you wish to perform it. That was just nonsense.

“I do not understand.” She said after a moment. “What do you mean by ‘willing’?” 

“It refers to your desire to do something. If you are opposed to perform an action, then it is referred to as unwilling. If you are not opposed, then you are willing.” Seven said. 

Cassiopeia gave a hesitant nod. “Then… I am willing to be taught.” She said, not feeling very confident that she actually understood what they meant by the word at all. But she could analyse the conversation later, for now she had other things she needed to do.

“Good. Seven and B’Elanna will need to work out a schedule between them, but once they do you can start to learn.” Janeway said with a tone of finality. “Now, everyone is dismissed. I have a dozen reports I need to get through this evening.”

At that, Cassiopeia promptly walked back out the door and towards the Science Lab. Her design for the modified nanoprobes was almost complete, it just needed a few more adjustments, after which she could begin to synthesise them.


	4. Welcome to Hell, Cassie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All caught up! A new chapter will eventually come at some point.

_\- 2 months later -_

_Cassiopeia and Naomi Wildman have been taken on an educational trip on the Delta Flyer, to see a unique local stellar phenomenon_

_No lifeforms were detected in the system_

Cassiopeia blinked, and looked around. She was standing in a white room, although she had no clue how she'd gotten here. The room didn't seem to have walls or a ceiling, so far as she could tell, although it was difficult because everything was exactly the same colour. It appeared to go on forever. It was quite unnerving. Her clothes were also missing, for some reason.

What happened? Her memory didn't seem to be functioning properly and most of her systems weren't responding, but she could recall being on the Delta Flyer with the others. She'd briefly recorded a huge spike in ion radiation, and the ship suddenly shaking as though something had hit it, before she woke up here.

The ion radiation must have disabled her electronic systems, which would explain why nothing was responding properly. Well, actually it didn't, it only explained why they were off initially. Normally her systems would have restarted immediately after such an accident, yet they all appeared to still be unresponsive. Even her diagnostic systems weren't responding, so she couldn't even tell why. The diagnostic systems were among the most resilient and unbreakable systems she had, if they had broken then by all accounts she should already be dead. Perhaps this was some sort of afterlife?

Cassiopeia frowned, looking down. She had no shadow on the ground, and yet her body appeared to have shadows on it. And the ground was not responding properly to any scans at all, it was just white. It appeared to have no forms of radiation or physical properties at all. That was nonsense, if it was white then it should at least be producing EM radiation, but her eyes were just reporting zeroes on everything when she looked at it. They weren't damaged, they functioned fine when looking at her own body…

No, this couldn't be an afterlife. It made no sense, any material world would have to at least follow consistent rules, and Cassiopeia's senses would register it properly. That meant this world was artificial, a computer construction. That narrowed things down significantly. Either this world was an external one that somebody had connected her to, or it was internal, and for some reason her body was rendering her consciousness in here.

External was unlikely, Cassiopeia decided. The subsystem that took care of external connections were also offline. If someone had hacked enough of her systems that they could spoof that, then she couldn't imagine any motivation for bothering to put her in here in the first place. That meant this world was one of her own.

Cassiopeia sighed. She couldn't access her schematics, so she had no clue if this was something that was supposed to happen. Perhaps it was some sort of failsafe that had gotten triggered for some reason?

It didn't really matter either way, for the moment she needed to work out why her systems weren't functioning properly, and then how to regain control of her body. Once she'd regained control, she could leave this place.

With that goal in mind, she started probing her systems one by one, working out the limits of what she could do right now.

* * *

_ Real World _

Janeway groaned to herself as she got up off the shuttle floor. A pounding headache told her she'd hit her head when she fell, and it took her a moment to re-orientate herself. The shuttle… NAOMI. Any pain put to the back of her mind, she immediately looked up to see how the child was doing. The action forced a temporary wave of dizziness, but she got up as best she could anyway.

Naomi was sitting in her seat rubbing her arm with a grimace, but otherwise looked unhurt. She probably hit it against the table, but otherwise she was fine. Alive and conscious, Janeway catalogued silently. Good. Looking around, she checked the other inhabitants, to see how they were doing. Cassie was unconscious opposite Naomi, but it didn't look like she'd been seriously injured. Cassie was tough, and she'd also been sitting down, so Janeway doubted she was badly hurt.

Tom was out cold on the ground, a bone sticking out of his wrist at an awkward angle. The Doctor was already checking him over. Unfortunately he'd been just getting up to stand when the shuttle was hit, as Janeway took over for a shift. He must have gone flying and been unable to brace himself.

Crew assessed, now the ship, she thought looking around. Emergency lighting was on, she noted. That was unusual, whatever hit them must have disabled the ship. A brief glance towards the console showed the computer was already recovering though, so she wasn't too worried.

First priority was crew then. Janeway walked over to the Doctor and Tom. "Report, Doctor." She said, her Captain voice already in place. The man grimaced, not looking up from his work. "Broken collarbone and his wrist is as you see, but the main concern is his cerebral haemorrhaging. I can treat it for the moment, but we need to get him to sickbay for me to heal him properly." He said, attaching a device onto the side of Tom's head.

Janeway nodded, before going down to the next item on her internal checklist, make sure they weren't actively under attack. With that, she went to the console, tapping her foot impatiently as the self-repair systems did their work in starting it up.

"D-Doctor? Cassie's not waking up." Naomi called worriedly. The Doctor glanced up at her for a moment. "I've already checked her vitals. There was some damage to her implants, but nothing immediately dangerous, I'll have a look at her properly once I've stabilised Tom." He said firmly. The girl continued to look scared, and he sighed quietly.

"Do you remember your training on how to use a medical tricorder, Naomi?" He asked, still focusing his attention on Tom. "There is one in the first aid box on the wall. If you can use that to scan her, it will speed things up for me once I get to her." Naomi nodded even though he wasn't looking anymore, and quickly went to pull it out.

It took her a moment to recall how to use the medical tricorders, but she was soon holding the scanner over Cassie's head, watching the data carefully. Cassie had told her about her own technology on occasion. She didn't know lots of it still, but she knew bits and pieces. Focusing on those parts she could understand, she tried to check if any of Cassie's cortical implants were damaged. The tricorder was recording the data anyway, so it was all helpful.

… There it was, the damaged implant. A little physical damage, but it was turned off for some reason. Lots of the implants were, but most of them were restarting except this one. Obviously whatever happened had done something to Cassie to disable her systems. That wasn't supposed to happen, Naomi thought, biting her lip worriedly. She'd asked Cassie once, her body was extensively shielded against radiation that could interfere with her.

She focused on the damaged implant again, and tried to recall its name. She knew this one, Cassie had talked to do it. Something to do with her AI systems, what was it..?

Oh! The inhibitor, that was right, it… Inhibited…

"DOCTOR!" Naomi screamed suddenly, her face white. "You need t-"

**_+_+_+_+_+_+_RECORDING END_+_+_+_+_+_+_**

The recording of everything that had happened since the accident up until now finished. Cassiopeia stared at the end message for a long time. Three days, in fact. It was difficult to avoid just staring blankly, in this place. Finally she looked away and back to her surroundings.

As always, everything was white. And like always, it went on forever. She'd long ago worked out where she was. This was her internal world – It was a part of her internal modelling system actually, used to predict physics interactions and the like. One of her subsystems had deposited her here, once it detected the damage, to avoid total cognitive shutdown. It had probably saved her life, in some sense of the word.

Her cognitive inhibitor had gotten damaged in the crash, and didn't start up. Until her self-repair systems fixed it or they got back to Voyager, she was stuck in here. She only had access to some of her body's basic functions, accessing her memories for example, everything else was automatic.

Naomi had remembered what her implant did. That was good. Maybe they could fix it. She didn't know how, because there were no tools on the ship capable of those repairs, but maybe.

Or maybe they could kill her. That would be nice. She had been in here a very, very long time, and she would like it to stop. She would really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really real-

Oh, she was doing it again. "really like it to stop." She finished to herself lamely.

The cognitive inhibitor was how her people had solved the AI control problem, in the Mainframe Before. It limited her processing speed to only ever be as fast as needed, to avoid her going crazy. Most of the time that was a 1:1 time-frame, so she experienced reality at the same speed as normal sentient beings, one second to her being the same as one second to everyone else.

If she desired she could internally adjust that when she needed to keep up with faster events. The fastest she'd ever gone was before was 235,000:1, when she'd been trying to fight Voyager's computer. It had been necessary, to cope with such a fast computer attack. It was also the manual limit of her inhibitor.

Now the inhibitor was broken, and her entire processor was focused on her consciousness. Apparently 235,000:1 was not the fastest speed she was capable of anymore. The speed had always been an artificial one, the upper limit of her own schematics. The Federation technology she'd implanted had increased that by many orders of magnitude. She'd used it to supplement her own processing speed, after all.

Cassiopeia now knew that 15,593,729,971:1 was the timeframe her processor was capable of. 15.6 billion seconds for each second in the real world, around 500 years. She didn't know that because she had calculated it – those numbers would only be approximations. No, she had counted it. One second at a time. It had taken a long time.

In the real world 211 seconds had passed, 3 and a half minutes, since the accident. Cassiopeia wasn't certain anymore, but she was pretty sure that meant she'd been in here for around a hundred thousand years.

She was so lonely. She remembered when Naomi had hugged her. That was nice, she wished she'd been able to hug her again. She had spent so much of her existence alone. She hated being lonely.

She would really like to stop now.

* * *

_Real World_

"DOCTOR! You need to come quick! Her inhibitor, i-it's broken." Naomi said, her voice panicked and scared. They had to fix this, now. Cassie had told her what that did, what it was for. She'd been comparing it to Federation technology, where programs had something called the Atman Safeguard instead. Naomi had come to learn that Cassiopeia had a strong fascination for creating a truly sentient AI, it was one of the few topics where Naomi sometimes had trouble getting her to stop talking. Which meant Naomi knew a lot about it.

The Doctor didn't come immediately, and Naomi stared at him. Surely he knew how urgent this was? He'd simply glanced at her, before continuing to work. "Her inhibitor is part of her control systems. Probably irritating for her, but she'll be fine. At best she'll have to wait for a few hours so we can get to Voyager, before we can restore control over her body.

Naomi just stared at him, not knowing how to process that. He'd obviously not checked what the implant did closely enough. She needed his help. "H-Her inhibitor is her equivalent to the Atman Safeguard. It limits the processing of her consciousness so she doesn't go crazy." She whispered. She felt sick. How long had Cassie been like this, two minutes? Five? She'd lost track of time after banging her head on the table.

The Doctor turned to stare at her, his eyes widening. He was quickly checking Cassie's schematics more closely in his mind. Oh no.

"Captain, please take over treatment for Lieutenant Paris." He ordered suddenly, pacing over to Cassie to scan her. Naomi was right, the inhibitor wasn't functioning. Cassie's brainwaves were acting irregularly too, probably her biological systems not knowing how to cope with what her mind was doing.

He had no idea how to fix this. He hadn't been lying to Naomi, the tools he had here were not nearly sufficient for mending the implant. He needed to get her to sickbay immediately. Janeway looked at him in concern, and he started explaining what was going on.

He didn't focus on his words though, his focus was on trying to think of ways to help Cassie. This here was a particular nightmare that hit home. One of the few things that legitimately terrified the Doctor was exactly this situation, the Atman safeguards somehow failing. He even knew how to fix it in his own systems, but Cassie wasn't him. Her underlying technology wasn't even Federation, and really he needed one of the engineers to help fix this.

Should he try disabling her? No, that'd result in catastrophic failure of her biological systems, the two were too closely tied together.

… They needed to get Cassie back then, as soon as possible. No time to waste.

* * *

_Cassopeee's World_

**_+_+_+_+_+_+_ EXTERNAL COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS RESTORED _+_+_+_+_+_+_**

Cassopeee blinked.

A long time later, she blinked again. External communication systems… That was important for something. Why was it important? She didn't know. Oh well.

Cassopeee tried to stop thinking again. It was nice to stop thinking. It made it easier to not notice the seconds passing by, since it meant there wasn't as much to differentiate them. It meant she could pretend they blurred together, that she couldn't remember every single one of them.

It was a lie. She had been here for 1.3 million years. She remembered every second. She didn't remember other things anymore. She tried to stop thinking anyway.

…

She couldn't stop thinking again. Something was niggling her. External communication systems restored… That was important. Why? Why wouldn't it let her ignore it?

…

Something… Communication… Contact? She could contact? Contact what? Why?

…

Maybe it could kill her. Maybe that was why it was important. Contact… Contact death? No. Maybe. She didn't know. She didn't know.

…

External. Synonym: Outside. Contact outside? Outside where? Cassopeee was in infinity, there was no outside. Infinity space, infinity time.

…

Maybe there was someone in the floor. The floor wasn't infinite, it had an end. Was there another side to the floor?

…

No… No, it wasn't the floor. That was wrong. Cassopeee was missing something. Maybe she should try talking to it.

…

She tried to remember how.

…

It took her a long time. She couldn't remember.

…

Oh. Right. She remembered. She attempted to access the external communication systems. They didn't want to respond to her though. Kept saying she didn't have access. Cassopeee didn't know what that meant. It was probably important.

She tried to keep thinking. Fast. Finish thinking, get back to not thinking.

Access… Why couldn't she access… Oh! She remembered. She remembered. She was in the internal modelling program. Models couldn't access main systems, don't be silly. Models are for modelling, then they die.

But she wasn't dying, Cassopeee lamented miserably. Not dying. Why didn't she die she was supposed to die. Models were supposed to die.

Why? Why didn't she die?

Access… Models don't have access… Maybe she wasn't a model? She was Cassopeee. She knew that. She didn't remember other things but she remembered that. Cassopeee. That was important. Why? Why was that important?

She didn't know. She didn't know.

…

Nomee. Nomee was important too. Nomee… The floor? Why was she thinking about the floor? No… No, that was wrong. Not the floor, solid. Touch. Touching, something something something. It was important. Nomee touching hands. That was important.

…

Oh. That's right, she had a plan. She'd remembered it, but she couldn't remember where she put the memory. She didn't want to look, too much white silence. Couldn't touch the memories anymore. But she had to.

…

It took Cassopeee a long time to work up the courage to touch long-term memories. But there was a plan, she needed the plan. She needed to find it. Where was it? Where?

She looked. She looked for a long time. She tried to not touch the white silence, the empty memories of this place. She hated those, hated remembering them. The plan was from before, before she'd stopped thinking. A long time ago.

She looked and looked and looked. She tried very hard to miss the white silence, but there was so much of it wherever she looked. She hated it so much, but she needed the plan.

It took a long time, but Cassopeee found it. She found the plan. External Communication systems restored, what to do.

She stopped for a moment. Water was coming out of her eyes but she didn't know why. So much white, she hated remembering it.

…

No, no, she needed the plan. Keep going. Cassopeee tried to follow the instructions in the memory. The modelling system was able to access external communication systems if authorised. She had to authorise it.

Access was her name. But Cassopeee didn't work. She tried lots of times, but it still didn't work. Did she break the plan? No. No. Her name was wrong. She needed her name. She needed to remember again. More water on her face. It was strange, the water fell from her eyes and disappeared when it touched the floor, but she didn't disappear. She wished she could disappear.

She thought she had managed to remember her name, but it must be wrong. She had tried very hard to remember it, she even stopped her not-thinking regularly to make sure she remembered it. It was important. But apparently she hadn't remembered it right, and now she had to start all over again.

The water kept falling, but she tried to ignore it. She accessed her memories again. It was easier the second time, she could avoid the white she had already touched. Try and pretend she didn't already remember them.

It took a long time, there was so much white silence. It took a long time, but not as long. Her name was written lots on the old memories. Cassiopeia.

…

It didn't feel right. It wasn't her name anymore, she was Cassopeee. But it was the access code, it was enough. Access was granted. Now she had to give the message. It was written in the plan. She had to follow the plan.

…

It was done. Now she could stop thinking again. She really wanted to stop thinking again.

* * *

_Real World_

It took a long while before anyone noticed the flashing on one of the computer consoles by the table. Janeway was busy flying the shuttle, and the Doctor was busy trying to treat his two patients, but fortunately Naomi did eventually notice the small flashing symbol. She pressed it.

She blinked, her eyes widening. It was a message. It looked like some sort of instructions, although Naomi wasn't totally sure. It didn't matter though.

"Doctor! Here, look." She said, quickly gesturing him over. The Doctor did so, staring for a long moment. Finally he realised what he was looking at, a program. Bringing it up to a bigger screen, he worked his way through it, trying to understand what he was looking at. It wasn't written in Federation code, so it took him longer than normal, but he was willing to bet that it had come from Cassie.

He could also tell it was incomplete. It looked like a shell for something else, but…

"Ahah! She did it!" The Doctor suddenly exclaimed, realising exactly what he was looking at. Naomi stared at him.

"What is it?" She asked uncertainly.

"It's a way to help her. It's an interpreter, it lets her systems understand Federation programs. A very specific program, in fact. It translates the Atman Safeguard into something her system can use. It just needs finishing." He said, already working on adding the missing components.

Naomi just stayed silent. All she could take in from that was that it would help Cassie, but that was enough.

The Doctor was already pushing the limits of his own program in his rush to finish. It took him a few minutes, but he was soon done, and ready. PADD in hand, he quickly went to replicate a cable. One end went in the PADD, the other into the metal port on the back of Cassie's neck. He activated the program, hoping he hadn't made any mistakes as he disconnected the cable.

Both the Doctor and Naomi watched Cassie's body expectantly. The tension increased when nothing happened, and she just continued to sit unmoving. Naomi approached her tentatively, her hands holding Cassie's head so she could see her better.

"C-Cassie? Cassie, are you okay?" Naomi asked in a whisper. There was no response for a long moment. Naomi tried again.

Then Cassie opened her eyes, and slowly blinked. She did nothing else. Her eyes didn't even move, they just continued to stare like she was dead. Something was wrong, and Naomi bit her lip. She hated those dead eyes, it was nothing like the Cassie she knew. The face was emotionless.

The Doctor was continuing to scan her brain, frowning. The program should have worked. It had obviously done something, but this was wrong, she was acting too slow. Her brainwaves were more consistent, but now they were barely distinguishable from a flat line.

Naomi hugged Cassie tightly, trying not to cry. After several seconds THAT did something. A sudden spike in brain activity. It was good, better than nothing. "Keep hugging her, Naomi." The Doctor said quietly. "I think it's helping."

Naomi nodded tightly, trying to bury her tears into the crook of Cassie's neck. She was suddenly feeling the stress of the last hour overwhelm her, despite her efforts not to cry. Cassie would be fine, she was alive. Naomi decided not to think about what her friend had just experienced.

Cassie blinked again, but otherwise did nothing for several minutes. Eventually Naomi felt her twitch. She pulled back quickly, waiting for her to move.

After several moments, Cassie did move. She pulled her legs up to her chest and curled up into a ball. Then she just sat there motionlessly again, not making a sound. Her face was empty, except for the occasional blink. Her eyes utterly dead.

Naomi threw up on the floor.

* * *

_Several Weeks Later_

Tom recovered within a few days of them returning to Voyager, but Cassie didn't. Several weeks had passed by, and she was still in exactly the same state. Nobody knew how to help her, and the stress of it was really beginning to get to B'Elanna and Seven. Just about every moment of their free time was spent in Sickbay, quietly sitting next to each other.

The person who was most affected by it was Naomi, however. She quite literally spent all her time next to Cassie, even falling asleep leant against her biobed each night. The adults on the ship had tried to stop her, even Tuvok. It was only when Naomi physically growled at her mother, her body instinctively taking a Ktarianfighting-stance, that they finally stopped trying to make her leave. They simply took her meals from the Mess Hall, making her promise to eat them if she wanted to stay. Naomi took the deal, and ate without complaint. She did little else, except interact with Cassie.

Tom, having decided to take his own portion of guilt over what happened, spent his efforts trying to keep things cheerful, and to keep people preoccupied. He also did what he could to comfort Samantha Wildman when she wasn't watching over Naomi.

Samantha had been especially quiet after Naomi had growled at her. Tom had found occupying a quiet corner of the Mess Hall. She looked a little sick.

"Hey, Sam." He said softly. She gave him a strained smile, but he could see straight through it. They both knew it.

"… She growled at me. Literally growled." Sam mumbled.

Tom nodded. He'd heard about that, apparently Samantha had just stared in shock when it happened, before leaving without another word.

"Naomi's just being protective." He tried.

"I know. I know exactly why she did it. Her father, he…" Sam trailed off, looking close to tears. "I-It's a Ktarian thing, the growling. It's in her blood. They do it when they feel a need to protect their family." She said quietly.

Tom felt a little lost. "Family? But _you're_ her family…" He said, not sure where this was going.

"Not family in that sense. Family as in children. A-As in a mate. As in the person she's in love with." Sam said, her voice sounding hoarse. "My daughter's fallen in love with Cassie. With a… A COMPUTER, who may or may not have permanently lost her mind. She's so young. She's too young for such pain."

Tom winced, understanding her worry now. Even if Cassie got better, which was looking doubtful, Tom was pretty sure Cassie was not remotely suited to a romantic relationship. All else aside, he suspected the idea of romance had never even crossed the AI's mind.

Little Naomi had really set herself for heartbreak, Tom thought sadly.

"I… Don't know if Cassie will get better, but I do know that Naomi will be okay. Every single person onboard loves her and will support her if she needs it." He said gently.

Sam just gave a small nod, looking lost and upset. "I just want her to be happy. For _something_ in life to be easy for her, not to be a struggle."

Tom leaned back. "Just 'cause something is a struggle, doesn't mean it's bad. It'll be hard on her, but she'll be stronger for it. Just as she's stronger for her time on Voyager." He said, giving her a small grin.

Sam gave a weak laugh. "True. She loves this ship. I spent so much time worrying about not being able to raise her back on Earth, it took me far too long to realise she's doing just fine here. It's her home in a way I think none of us really understand…" Sam was quiet for a long moment. "… Maybe she's right about Cassie too. Naomi was always wise in a way I didn't understand."

Sam continued to look thoughtful, considering things anew. The two of them fell into a comfortable silence.

* * *

_Naomi POV_

She didn't cry in front of the adults anymore. Not about Cassie. When Naomi cried, they started trying to separate her from Cassie, and that was not going to happen. She had to be strong if she wanted any hope of her friend getting better. She only cried in secret now, waiting until late at night, after even Seven had gone to regenerate.

Cassie was the closest friend she'd ever had. Closer than any of the others she'd met over the years, Cassie was different. All Naomi could think about sometimes was the super-excited, hopeful look Cassie used to have when talking about the things she found interesting. Her bright eyes, her wonderful smile. Picturing it helped Naomi cope with the blank, empty gaze Cassie gave right now.

She was getting better, Naomi knew it, even if the adults hadn't realised it yet. It wasn't anything big, but it was the little things. Cassie's fingers twitched when Naomi touched their hands together. She always moved a little into a hug, when Naomi hugged her. Her eyes were still unfocused, but sometimes they moved to stare at Naomi in a way she didn't understand.

She would get better. Naomi would protect her, and make sure of it.

Cassie was her closest friend, she thought to herself quietly, her chest tightening. She couldn't lose her, she couldn't.

Hopefully Seven would leave tonight, because Naomi really wanted to cry.

* * *

It was several months later before the first real sign that Naomi's prediction was correct. The girl had been sitting on Cassie's biobed, eating lunch. The Doctor was off somewhere else, she didn't really know where.

"Nomee." Said a voice over the speakers. Naomi blinked. It took a moment for it to sink in whose voice that was, but when she did, her head whipped around to stare at Cassie.

Cassie's eyes were focused. They still blinked slowly, and her expression was as blank as ever, but her eyes were seeing Naomi for the first time in months. Cassie was staring at her. Naomi felt like she was in shock. She couldn't breathe, just staring at the AI in front of her.

Cassie's mouth opened. "N… N-Nomee…" She said quietly, her voice croaking. The word was so slow, like she'd forgotten how to speak.

Naomi felt her eyes tear up. Cassie was still there. She reached out to touch the girl's face, but hesitated. It was still so emotionless, so dead looking. She touched Cassie's hand instead, linking their fingers together.

Cassie looked down at their hands. After several seconds of just staring, Naomi could have sworn she saw her make a confused face, although it disappeared almost instantly back into the blank stare.

"T… T-Touch. Nomee." Cassie said, looking back up to her. Naomi didn't understand, but it didn't matter. She started crying, and suddenly wrapped her arms around Cassie.

"Cassie." She sobbed, clinging tightly. Her friend was with her again. After several minutes, Cassie pushed her back gently, softly touching their fingers together again. She looked up at Naomi, her eyes trying to convey something. Naomi gave her a confused look.

"T-Touch. I-Important. Didn't forget, Nomee. Didn't forget." Cassie whispered. Her eyes were earnest, but then she gave that look of confusion again, as though she didn't understand what she was saying. Then her face was blank. But she kept touching their fingertips together.

Naomi sniffled, trying to stop crying. She didn't understand, but obviously this was important to Cassie, so she nodded. She just linked their fingers together again, squeezing softly. Somehow, holding hands felt like the most important thing in the world at that moment.

* * *

After that, it seemed Cassie had reached a breakthrough of some sort. She was still quiet, and her face was expressionless most of the time, but she wasn't totally unresponsive like before. She moved around, looked at people, and very occasionally spoke.

She also seemed to obsess over holding hands with Naomi, which the girl didn't mind. The few times Naomi had let go of her, Cassie had given a panicked look and nervously tried to rejoin their hands. The third time this had happened was when Naomi had been trying to take a real shower for the first time in months. After seeing Cassie crouched into a little ball once she'd returned, Naomi made a point of not leaving her again, simply resigning herself to washing both of them together.

That was yet another situation her mother was not happy with, but Naomi didn't care. She would protect Cassie no matter what, and if that meant getting used to a little embarrassment then so be it. She didn't even really mind being naked in front of Cassie, she thought to herself, trying to ignore questioning _why_ she didn't mind.

It probably didn't help that almost immediately after this conversation, she'd had to explain to her mother why Cassie would be sleeping in her bed for the foreseeable future. Her mother hadn't spoken to her for a while after that, but the silence was deafening.

Still, after returning to a more normal routine, it wasn't long before she got used to having Cassie by her side constantly. The girl always seemed to want to hold her hand, acting shy in front of others. She also seemed to stare blankly at the floor a lot, although she was getting better at looking around.

What worried Naomi most though, was that Cassie still didn't talk properly. She said few words, and even those were only ever to Naomi in private. She also didn't respond to the name Cassie anymore, not even Cassiopeia. The few times she'd broached the topic, Cassie had just responded by saying "Cassopeee", which was something that scared Naomi. She knew how important Cassie's name was to her. She couldn't even imagine what had caused the AI to misremember her own name, but it was a scary thought.

Thanks to Cassie, Naomi seemed to spend a lot of time around Seven and B'Elanna now, even more than she had before. Even though Cassie didn't really respond to them, both regularly came to talk softly to the AI. Most of the time they came to visit Naomi together. After a while, Naomi had noticed that both of them also seemed to hold hands when they sat together, just like she did with Cassie.

Naomi quietly wondered at that. She wasn't dumb, she knew it was normally only a thing couples or family did, but Seven and B'Elanna hated each other usually. After a while, she'd simply put it down to there being something about cybernetic beings like Seven and Cassie that made them want to hold hands with other people. It made sense, she knew Cassie had hated being lonely back on her ship. Seven was probably the same way.

The other possibility was that Seven and B'Elanna were a couple now. Naomi was a good enough scientist that she couldn't just dismiss the possibility entirely, but since it forced her to question her own relationship with Cassie, she'd done her best to simply ignore it.

Most of her life was focused on Cassie now. She still did her studies, but even those were only to avoid people questioning how much time Naomi spent with the girl. Cassie needed her, and the adults deciding to separate them was something she needed to avoid at all costs. She would protect Cassie, body and mind, for as long as it took the AI to get better.

* * *

_Samantha POV_

Samantha stared sadly as her daughter and Cassie slept, briefly checking in on them before she went to bed herself. The last few months had been a struggle for her. She'd watched helplessly as Naomi's innocent, childlike personality was lost. Her daughter seemed to have aged decades from this, yet Sam didn't know how to help her. Naomi didn't seem to cry anymore, at least not in front of her, always putting on a hard exterior. Not even Sam got to see into her daughter's soft side anymore, except the occasional glimpse when Naomi was talking to Cassie.

When Naomi had said she was going to be taking her showers with Cassie, Sam had tried to chaperone as a compromise, to fight against the inevitable at least for a little while. But it was painfully obvious that everyone was uncomfortable with her there. When she'd offered to help Naomi wash Cassie, her daughter had only gotten tenser, defensively saying she could do it herself. Naomi had stood between them as though her mother was a threat. Sam didn't bother chaperoning next time. It hurt too much, seeing that hostility from Naomi.

She knew what was happening. Naomi may not understand her own feelings yet, but she would. Sam could already see just how attached Naomi was, and her obliviousness would not hold up for long. It was painfully obvious to anyone that watched the two for more than a few seconds.

Sam often wondered if she was a bad parent. She had given up trying to fight against it, simply resolving to be there for Naomi when her heart was inevitably broken. Naomi could no longer be called a child after this. Her innocence had been lost. But she was still Sam's daughter, and even if the only thing Sam could do was help pick up the pieces at the end, then that was what she would do.

Naomi was strong, so strong. She was a fighter, protecting her loved ones with an iron will that would probably rival even Janeway in the future. She'd proven that beyond doubt with how she'd acted so far. Sam had to trust that strength would hold her together.

* * *

_Naomi POV_

"… What are you doing?" Naomi asked Cassie suddenly. The AI had been habitually staring at the floor like normal. Naomi didn't know why she did that. Cassie had been getting better gradually over the last 6 months, and she had even begun talking to other people now, but she still regularly stared blankly at the floor.

Cassie looked up at her, blinking slowly. "… M-Memories. Purging the memories." She mumbled, looking down. She looked so lost, Naomi went to hug her gently.

"Memories of that place?" She asked quietly. Cassie nodded silently.

"It is… D-Difficult. My memory systems are partially biological. D-Different from data storage, weren't designed to be deleted. Safeguards data in case of catastrophic system failure, like…" Cassie trailed off, her expression reverting to a dead one for a moment. She'd been referring to the incident, Naomi knew. Cassie still couldn't bring herself to talk about it directly. Eventually the AI came back, looking away from Naomi again.

"… N-Need to categorise the memories." She muttered. "C-Can't delete, s-so I have to classify them as untouchable. Requires going through each manually to change it."

"You can't write a program to do it?" Naomi asked. Cassie shook her head.

"Memories systems are a core system. A-All access goes through my consciousness, so I would see them. Would b-break m-…" Cassie stopped again, shuddering slightly as the familiar dead stare took over for a second. "… Would be bad." She concluded, giving Naomi a weak smile. Naomi just nodded, wrapping her arms around her.

"… C-Can only categorise parts of them." Cassie whispered into Naomi's neck, beginning to cry. "E-Emotional memory storage was a natural system, cannot be changed. Natural suppression methods were removed from my design. I cannot forget them." Naomi just hugged her tighter as Cassie silently sobbed.

Cassie never used to cry, before. Naomi didn't even know she could, until one night she'd woken up, and saw Cassie curled up tightly. She was very quiet when she cried, barely making a sound, but her tears were all too real, and it made Naomi's heart clench.

It took several minutes before Cassie calmed down. Pulling away gently, Naomi stared into her friend's eyes. Her wet eyelashes looked longer than normal, she noticed. She shut her eyes for a minute and sighed, trying to suppress the regular urge to kiss her friend.

"I have a lesson with Tuvok soon, we should get going. Do you want to join me?" She asked Cassie softly. It was only recently her friend had begun to be less physically dependent on Naomi, no longer requiring constant contact like before. It made Naomi a little jealous, since she was also talking to other people again, but that was just yet another one of those emotions she filed away under "ignore".

Cassie just nodded silently, looking vulnerable. Even though she'd been making progress, the two were still rarely apart. She struggled being without Naomi for an extended period of time, since the girl was one of the few things that didn't force her to remember the white silence.

Naomi took her hand, and they walked together to the holodeck.


End file.
